Kathmandu, August 25: The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) has shed 0.9 percent (10.97 points) last week as the investors continue to be confused over the new rule of calculating the capital gains in the shares’ transactions. Over the last three weeks, the market went down by 51 points in total.
The average daily turnover also slid to Rs 309.20 million last week from Rs 357.55 million in the previous week.
The market opened at 1,224.04 points on Sunday and fell 9.20 points to close at 1,214.84 points. On Monday, the secondary market gained 7.23 points followed by a decline of 8.43 points on Tuesday.
Likewise, the market index inched up 0.42 points on Wednesday. On Thursday, the market, however, slipped again by 0.99 points.
The secondary market for the past one month has been reeling in the row of confusion over the complexity in calculating the amount of capital gains enforced by the tax authority. After the Ministry of Finance handed over the chargeback to the Securities Board of Nepal, the board had allowed the investors to declare the capital gains on their own via an online system.
Stocks analysts said the investors, however, are not clear on the provision in the new rule. “Despite the provision of the self-declaration rule, many investors do not have an idea on how to calculate the weighted difference of the shares that they purchase on different dates,” said a stockbroker on the condition of anonymity.
The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group A companies also went down by 0.98 points to close at 263.71 points after a majority of trading groups took a downturn in their stocks transactions.
Last week, investors lost an Rs11.80 billion in the book value of their investment portfolio, after the market capitalization declined to Rs1,539.80 billion from Rs1,551.60 billion.
Except trading, rest of 10 groups observed a fall in their indices during the review period. Non-life Insurance with a drop of 134.87 points posted the biggest loss, closing at 4,759.17 points. Life-insurance, finance companies, hydropower, hotels, and manufacturing also lost their indices in double-digit values.
Commercial banks that have the largest shares in the market capitalization also slid with 4.51 points. Development bank, ‘others’ and microfinance were among the groups that witnessed a slight drop in their respective indices.
