Stock markets dips with investors' fear

Following investors' fear of a possible fall due to a heavy loss last week, stock trading slightly dropped this week. The index of Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) dropped by 2.96 points this week.

NEPSE index opened at 496.64 points on Sunday.  It saw a marginal improvement on the second day with its index at 500.72 points. However, it dropped to 500.12 points on the third day. Further it went down to 494.06 points on the third day and closed at 493.88 points on the final day.

The stock market had lost over 18 points last week in an aftermath of Nepal Rastra Bank’s stringent measures on margin lending to correct the market anomaly.
 
The total turnover stood at Rs. 155.3 million with 331,001 units of shares having been traded through 3,373 transactions.  During the previous week, a total of 338,116 units of shares were traded on a turnover of Rs. 169.6 million.
 
According to the group wise share trading data, the manufacturing group maintained a steady growth of 1.03 points and closed at 347.07 points. The group opened at 346.04 points.

Hotel group registered its index up by 10.66 points and closed at 233.84 from the opening 223.18 points son Sunday. Likewise, the finance group registered a marginal growth to finish off at 439.76 points. Last week’s loser, this group began trading at 439.55 points.

Likewise, indices of the development banks increased by 2.76 points to 483.85 points.
 
The commercial banks’ index dropped by 3.23 points to land at 520.33 points. However, it kept itself ahead of others by capturing 64.90 percent of the total transactions.
 
Among the losers, the insurance group incurred a heavy loss, as its index plummeted by 27.30 points and its index dipped to 608.31 points on Thursday from the opening 635.61 points. Likewise, the others group lost 6.40 points and closed down at 650.14 points.

The finance group came behind commercial banks accounting for 11.75 percent. The development banks group had 9.25 percent while the others group made up 7.73 percent. Likewise, 4.20 percent transactions went for insurance group.
 
Out of the total 79 listed companies for share trading, 74 companies saw transactions this week.

Bank of Kathmandu surpassed all by turnover, its shares were traded on a turnover of Rs. 21.2 million. Shikhar Insurance saw the largest number of transactions, 1,157 in total. Jyoti Spinning Mills led others by the number of traded shares, 38,467 units of shares altogether.