Kathmandu, January 26: The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index last week (Jan 19 to 23) shed 12.75 points to close at 1,297.47 points with the investors rushing to book the gains of the previous week when the market had surged by around 100 points.
The market that opened at 1,310.23 points gained more than 33 points on Sunday. On Monday, it, however, plunged 26.54 points followed by a nominal gain of 3.35 points on Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, the benchmark index again went down by 7 points and 15 points respectively.
Last week, the local bourse posted a record turnover of over Rs 8.5 billion, up from Rs 6.67 billion in the previous week. As a result, the average daily transaction stood at Rs 1.70 billion.
The sensitive index that measures the trading of shares of ‘A’ groups companies also went down 1.46% to close at 278.72 points with a drop in indices of majority sub-groups including commercial banks that holds major share in the market capitalization.
Most of the sectors remained affected by broad profit booking during the review period. The trading sub-index lost 9%. Hotels stocks also struggled as the group’s sub-index fell more than 3%. Hydropower and Microfinance sectors posted losses of over 2% each. The banking sub-index also closed the last week 2% lower.
The insurance sectors bucked the trend as life insurance and non-life Insurance sub-indices rallied more than 7% and 4%, respectively. The mutual fund and finance sub-indices also closed the last week marginally higher.
In terms of individual companies, Global IME Bank Limited saw a total turnover of over Rs 806.23 million. Nepal Life Insurance Company Ltd and Himalayan Distillery Ltd followed the suit with turnovers of over Rs 480 million each. NIC Asia Bank Ltd and Shivam Cements were among other active scrips of the last week.
With a decline in share prices of the majority of the sub-groups, the market capitalization also went down to Rs 1,654.73 billion from Rs 1,679.25 billion, wiping out Rs 24.52 billion in the book value of the investors’ portfolio.
