Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index increased by a whopping 48.08 points to close at 1,229.77 points with investors flocking to shares of commercial banks who posted good financial reports.

Along with the rise in Nepse, the average daily transaction amount also escalated to Rs577.09 from Rs200.74 million in the previous week.     

Nepse opened at 1,181.69 points on Sunday and increased by 8.59 points to close at 1,190.28 points. On Monday too, the market took an upward leap of 15.98 points and closed at 1,206.26 points, which was followed by successive gains of 3.98 points and 23.89 points on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

The market could not maintain its positive momentum on the last trading day and dropped 4.36 points on Thursday, as short term investors cashed out amid increased share prices.

Consequently, the market closed with a gain of 4.06 percent in overall trading days during the review period.

Stockbrokers attributed the significant rise in Nepse to investors’ attraction to purchasing shares of financial institutes. “Investors rushed to purchase shares of such institutions, with expectations of receiving attractive bonuses,” said a stockbroker under condition of anonymity. “In addition, the information regarding Nepse’s progress on implementing the online trading also influenced the investors over the period.”

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also went up 10.56 points to close at 260.35 points with an increase in the stocks’ value of commercial banks in particular.  

Along with a rise in the market index, the average value of the shares listed on the stock market also rose by Rs58.82 billion while the market capitalisation surged to Rs1,464.65 billion from Rs1,405.83 billion.

Last week, all 11 trading groups posted a gain in their indices. Non-life insurance gained the largest of 206.99 points and closed at 5,971.14 points. Similarly, life-insurance also posted a three digit growth of 127.23 points to close at 5,648.38 points.

Likewise, index of manufacturing added up 75.34 points, hotels gained 60.11 points, commercial banks gained 50.52 points and development banks gained 48.3 points. Microfinance witnessed a gain of 40.22 points, hydropower added 39.14 points and ‘others’ added 19.45 points. The sub-indicies of finance and trading gained 11.93 points and 0.97 points respectively.

Of the individual companies, NMB Bank led in terms of both transaction amount and the number of traded shares. The bank recorded transactions worth Rs220.05 million out of the trading of 664,000 shares during the review period.

Similarly, shares of NIC Asia Bank worth Rs208.63 million were transacted. Nepal Life Insurance, Kumari Bank Limited and promoters’ shares of Nepal Investment Bank were among the top five companies.

Last week, stocks of 193 listed companies were traded. With a rise in market index, the transaction amount also increased 259.34 percent to Rs2.88 billion. The traded number of shares also surged to 10,255,680 units from 2,542,710 units.  

Right Shares/Bonus Shares

Company    Type    Units

Green Development Bank    Right    4,000,000

Asian Life Insurance Company    Bonus    483,355.94

Prabhu Bank Limited    Right    2,326,287