Nepal Stock Exchange last week surged by a whopping 59.81 points to close at 1,292.12 points, as investors rushed to purchase stocks after majority of the listed companies posted strong third quarter reports, hinting at the possibility of dividends.

With a rise in the market index, the average daily turnover increased to over Rs1 billion last week from Rs655.04 in the previous week.

The secondary market opened at 1,232.31 points on Sunday, soared 31.89 points to close at 1,264.2 points. On Monday, the market however declined 7.26 points before following an upward trend in the remaining trading days. The market inclined 3.21 points, 19.14 points and 12.83 points respectively on successive days.

In overall trading, the market increased by 4.85 percent during the review period.

Stock analysts said the market escalated with the boost in confidence among investors. “It’s primarily due to the good financial health unveiled by commercial banks in particular which buoyed investors’ confidence,” said a stockbroker under condition of maintaining anonymity.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chips companies also inclined 14.1 points to close at 279.67 points after majority of trading groups including commercial bank, which holds major shares in market capitalisation, posted notable gain in their indices. With an increase in share prices, investors gained Rs72.85 billion from the transaction, as the market capitalisation increased to Rs1,601.05 billion from Rs1,528.20 billion.

Except for hydropower and trading, the other nine trading groups picked up points during the review period. Life-insurance gained the largest of 255.69 points to close at 6,329.34 points. It was followed by non-life insurance that added 162.58 points in its index.

Similarly, manufacturing gained 78.3 points, development banks gained 76.34 points, commercial banks gained 76 points and hotels gained 74.07 points. The index of microfinance increased 17.42 points while those of ‘others’ and finance companies increased 12.77 points and 6.89 points respectively.

Of the two losers, hydropower index dropped 2.55 points and trading index fell marginally by 0.09 points.

Regarding the individual companies’ trading amount, Nepal Bank Limited with holding transaction of its stocks worth Rs560.8 million topped the group. It was followed by Prabhu Bank, NIC Asia Bank, NMB Bank and Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank.

Last week, stocks worth Rs5 billion were traded which was almost double the transaction amount in the previous week. The total number of traded shares also increased to 16,366,581 units from 8,642,026 units.

NEPSE listed 6,988,416.91 units bonus shares of Laxmi Bank.