Share market static as Dashain approaches

The stock exchange this week — September 29 to October 3 — witnessed more than 45.6 million units of ordinary shares getting listed, while the market remained almost static due to the fast approaching Dashain.

Four financial institutions — Rural Microfinance Development Center, Hamro Bikas Bank, Jebil’s Finance and Sana Kisan Bikas Bank — that had conducted their Initial Public Offerings in July, got their 9.8 million units of ordinary shares listed at Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) for trading this week.
In addition, Nepal Bank Ltd’s 35.8 million units of rights shares also were listed.

The Nepse index gained 1.48 points. However, investors seem to be taking their time, waiting for the festive season to be over. An increment in transaction volume was brought about by the block trading of Himalayan Bank’s promoter shares.

This week’s transaction volume increased by 24.91 per cent, mostly due to the block transaction of Himalayan Bank’s promoter shares worth Rs 153 million. Nepse’s trading floor saw transaction of 2.6 million units of shares worth Rs 682 million being traded in 7656 transactions. Last week, 2.05 million units of shares worth Rs 546 million were traded in 8026 transactions.

Share trading of blue chip stocks belonging to the class ‘A’ group comprised of 35.84 per cent of total transactions, amounting to Rs 244.4 million. The sensitive index that shows the performance of class ‘A’ stocks increased by 0.49 points. However, the float index that measures the performance of shares actually traded went down by 0.05 points to 38.52 points.

On Sunday afternoon, the market that had opened at 541.36 points crawled up to 541.55 points by the time the market closed. In the next two days, the index kept hovering over 541 points. By Thursday, it had inched up a bit, resting at 542.87 points when the market closed for the week.

This week, except for banking, finance companies and manufacturing, rest of the subgroups ended up registering gains. Hydropower, others and insurance subgroups all earned nine points in the week’s trading. Likewise, Soaltee Hotel and Oriental Hotel’s gains made the hotels subgroup go up by 8.05 points.

Commercial banks and finance companies registered a loss of 0.24 points and 1.68 points, respectively. Manufacturing lost 1.23 points.

This week, Himalayan Bank’s promoter shares topped the charts in terms of transaction volume and number of shares traded with trading of 635,843 unit shares worth Rs 153.2 million. Mega Bank Nepal was the forerunner in terms of number of transactions with 1373 transactions.

The top five companies this week in terms of transaction volume were Himalayan Bank’s promoter shares (Rs 153.25 million), Nepal Bangladesh Bank (Rs 40.87 million), Chilime Hydropower Company (Rs 31.27 million), NCC Bank (Rs 29.41 million), and National Hydropower (Rs 24.94 million).
-THT