September 22 : The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) slid marginally by 0.22 percent (2.59 points) to close at 1,155.30 points last week.
The market that opened at 1,157.89 points on Sunday fell 17.87 points to close at 1,140.02 points. On Monday too, the index saw the double-digit loss of 16.18 points.
On the two successive trading days, the market, however, gained 26.9 points and 22.69 points respectively. This can largely be ascribed to the positive gestures shown by Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada towards the local bourse.
Speaking at a programme on Tuesday, he had urged the fund raisers such as Employee Provident Fund and Citizen Investment Trust to invest in the stock exchange market.
But the market again went down on Thursday, the last trading day, by losing 18.13 points.
Niraj Giri, spokesperson of the Securities Board of Nepal, ascribes the bearish trend in the share market to the imprudent behaviors of small investors who outnumber the institutional ones. “Unlike the institutional investors, small investors do not consider the fundamentals of the market before buying or selling shares, and they tend to get easily anxious event at the slightest change in the related government policy or announcements”.
The sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chips companies also went down by 1.59 points to close at 252.21 points largely because of the downfall in the share prices of commercial banks.
Last week, investors lost Rs 3.13 billion in the book value of their investment portfolio after the market capitalisation declined to Rs1,467.45 billion from Rs1,470.58 billion.
During the review period, out of 11 trading groups, four witnessed a downturn in their indices. Life insurance saw the largest loss of 28.45 points to close at 5,118.40 points. Non-life insurance, commercial banks and ‘others’ were also among the losers. Hotels, microfinance and trading also lost double digit points. Indices of hydropower, finance companies and development banks fell by marginal values.
Manufacturing posted the largest gain of 78.48 points. Last week, stocks’ trading amount stood at Rs1.89 billion, which was five percent more compared to the transaction amount registered in the previous week.
During the review period, the Nepal Stock Exchange listed 891,874.35 units of bonus shares of Reliance Finance and 8,219,475 units of right shares of Everest Insurance Company.
