Money
Small investors boost Nepse
Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index increased marginally by 8.93 points to close at 1,366.15 points last week, boosted by small investors while large and institutional investors were unwilling to invest in the secondary market.Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index increased marginally by 8.93 points to close at 1,366.15 points last week, boosted by small investors while large and institutional investors were unwilling to invest in the secondary market.
The market that opened at 1,357.22 points on Sunday declined 8.21points to close at 1,349.01 points. The market remained closed to mark the public holidays of Buddha Jayanti and Labour Day on Monday and Tuesday respectively.
After the holidays, the market picked up 11.37 points on Wednesday to close at 1,360.38 points. Nepse added up 5.77 points on Thursday and ended the trading week with a nominal rise of 0.65 percent.
Stockbrokers attributed the slight increase in Nepse primarily to small investors pouring their money into the secondary market last week.
“A number of these investors respond the market very quickly when there is small rise or fall in shares’ prices,” said a stockbroker under condition of anonymity. “On the other hand, big investors as well as institutional investors took a wait and watch stance as they approach the end of the fiscal year with expectations of liquidity shortfall in banks easing.”
The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also went up 1.23 points to close at 288.29 points with the sub-index of commercial banks dropping points despite a rise in stock prices of majority of the groups during the review period.
Along with a fall in the market index, the average value of shares listed on the stock market also increased by Rs10.48 billion, as the market capitalisation reached Rs1,603.10 billion from Rs1,592.62 billion over the week.
Of the 10 trading groups, seven observed upward movement in their indices. Insurance gained the largest of 185.04 points to close at 7,098.53 points.
Microfinance added 58.84 points followed by hotels with 49.96 points, hydropower with 42.7 points, development banks with 15.92 points, ‘others’ with 4.42 points and trading with 0.76 points.
The three remaining trading groups including commercial bank, finance companies and manufacturing lost 5.34 points, 4.85 points and 1.33 points respectively.
Of the individual companies, Nepal Bank Limited led in terms of both transaction amount and traded number of shares.
The company witnessed turnover of Rs85.92 million from trading of 242,000 units of its shares.
Likewise, promoters’ shares of Rastriya Beema Company recorded transactions worth Rs60.49 million to finish in second position.
It was followed by Swadeshi Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha, general shares of Rastriya Beema Company and Premier Insurance Company.
Last week, stocks of 176 listed companies were traded. Despite a rise in market index, the transaction amount fell 66.63 percent to Rs1.56 billion. The traded number of shares also declined to 3,244,500 units from 10,185,000 units.