The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) last week slid 39.81 points to close at 1,227.37 points, with a large number of investors selling their stocks. Along with the fall in Nepse, the average daily transaction amount also declined to Rs477.36 million from Rs827.03 million in the previous week.     

The secondary market that opened at 1,267.18 points on Sunday fell 10.47 points to close at 1,256.71 points. On Monday too, the market shed 18.04 points. It saw an increase of 2.69 points on Tuesday, but on Wednesday and Thursday, the market index fell again, by 10.76 points and 3.23 points respectively.      

Consequently, the market closed with a fall of 3.14 percent in overall trading days during the review period. 

Stockbrokers attributed the downfall in Nepse to selling pressure from the investors. “A large number of investors rushed to book profit out of the increased stock values, as transactions had soared in the previous week, in order to make more money, keeping in mind the upcoming Dashain festival,” said a stockbroker under the condition of maintaining anonymity. 

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also went down 8.99 points to close at 260.24 points with a decline in the stocks’ value of almost all the trading groups along with a massive fall in commercial banks’ sub index.  

With a dip in the market index, the average value of the shares listed in the stock market also fell by Rs47.42 billion, as market capitalisation declined to Rs1,461.90 billion from Rs1,509.32 billion. 

Except trading, the performance of the rest of the 10 groups also went down. Non-life insurance lost the largest, 183.54 points, to close at 5,750.74 points. Life insurance was second, losing 119.85 points and closing at 5,575.69 points. 

Likewise, hotels lost 74.9 points, development banks lost 68.13 points, microfinance lost 52.29 points and commercial banks lost 40.38 points. Similarly, Nepse of hydropower went down 29.2 points, manufacturing 26.91 points, ‘others’ 13.22 points and finance companies 8.03 points. 

Being the single gainer, trading added up 9.46 points in its index.  

Of the individual companies, Nepal Bank Limited led in terms of both the transaction amount and the number of traded shares. The bank witnessed transaction of Rs145.15 million out of trading 461,000 unit shares. Similarly, 

NMB Bank, holding transactions worth Rs129.49 million, stood in second position. Global IME Bank, NIC Asia Bank and Prabhu Bank Limited were among others in the lists. 

Along with the rise in market index, the transaction amount also declined by 27.87 percent to Rs2.38 billion.