Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) last week slid by a marginal 0.52 points to close at 1,241.11 points as rumblings of a possible rise in interest rate spooked investors.

In the first week of trade following the public holidays of Dashain, the daily turnover stood at Rs203.85 million.

The secondary market that opened at 1,241.63 points on Sunday gained 4.89 points to close at 1,246.52 points. On Monday, the market lost 1.98 points in its index and closed at 1,244.54 points.

On Tuesday too, the Nepse was down 2.7 points before gaining 8.09 points on Wednesday, after stockbrokers received training on the fully automated online trading system. The bourse has planned to implement the system from mid-November.However, on Thursday, the market plunged 8.82 points as rumblings of a possible rise in the interest rate by the banks in the near future spread among investors.

Consequently, the market closed with a downfall of 0.04 percent in overall trading days during the review period.

Stockbrokers attributed the fluctuation in Nepal’s only secondary market to two factors: Nepse mulling to launch the online trading system and the shortfall of loanable funds with banks.

“The fear of a surge in interest rate by the banks seemed to overrule any positive effects gained from the upcoming launch of the online trading system and ultimately shook investor confidence,” said a stockbroker under condition of anonymity.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also declined nominally by 0.09 points to close at 264.01 points despite a small rise in the sub-index of commercial banks.With a fall in the market index, the average value of the shares listed on the stockmarket also declined Rs62million, as the market capitalisation fell to Rs1,480.60 billion from Rs1,481.22 points.

Out of the 11 trading groups, six lost points last week. Non-life insurance lost the largest of 78.66 points to close at 5,706.19 points. It was followed by microfinance (16.47 points), hydropower (10 points), life insurance (1.71 points), trading (1.69 points) and ‘others’ of 0.87 points.

Out of the five gainers, the sub-index of hotels added the largest of 40.57 points and closed at 1,894.8 points. Manufacturing gained 28.48 points, finance companies gained 5.92 points, development banks gained 4.77 points and commercial banks gained the least of 1.31 points.

Of the individual companies, Prabhu Bank Limited led in terms of both the transaction amount and the number of traded shares. A total of 673,000 units of the bank’s shares worth Rs168.08 were transacted last week.Similarly, NIC Asia Bank with holding transaction of its shares worth Rs67.07 million, stood in second position. Kumari Bank, Mega Bank Nepal and NMB Bank Limited round up the top five.Last week, stocks of 198 listed companies were transacted. The transaction amount stood at Rs1.01 billion while the total number of traded shares was 4,113,520 units.