Kathmandu, November 17: The Nepal Stock Exchange last week (Nov 10 to 14) gained 3.96 points to close at 1,135.95 points due to an ease in the selling pressure resulted from the rumors of a possible reshuffle in the Cabinet.
The benchmark on Sunday opened at 1,131.98 points and fell slightly by 0.18 points. On Monday, it gained 13.76 points before going down again by 5.60 points and 4.79 points respectively on the two successive days-Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, the secondary market closed the week inclining up 0.78 points.
“The political speculations about the change in the cabinet structure have helped boost the confidence of the investors happy as they are dissatisfied with the current ministerial set-up. As such, it resulted in an improvement in the performance of the local bourse market, which had been struck into a slump for a long time period,” said a stockbroker on condition of anonymity.
The sensitive index that measures the trading of shares of blue chips companies also went up 1.75 points to close at 250.06 points during the review period.
Of the 11 trading groups that closed the week in the green, the manufacturing gained the most with its sub-index shooting up by 55.23 points to close at 2,450.96 points. Trading, non-life insurance, and microfinance also witnessed double-digit gain. Life insurance, finance companies, ‘others’ and commercial banks witnessed a nominal rise in their respective sub-indices.
Hotels, development banks, and hydropower companies were the losers of the last week.
With a rise in share prices of the majority of the sub-groups, the market capitalization inclined to Rs1,441.43 billion from Rs1,437.29 billion, making investors add Rs4.14 billion in the book value of their investment portfolio.
Last week, NMB Bank witnessed the largest transaction volume of Rs335.46 million. Prabhu Bank, Himalayan Distillery Limited, Nepal Bank Limited, and Machhapuchchhre Bank were also among the top five companies with the largest turnovers.
Nepal Stock Exchange had listed 3,762,250 new shares of Prime Commercial Bank and Kalika Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha during the review period.
