The secondary market index went upby 16.46 points or 1.15 per cent in the trading week between January 7 and 11.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse)remained open for only four days against the normal five trading days as thesecondary market remained closed on Thursday due to public holiday ofPrithvi Jayanti.

Along with Nepse index, sensitiveand float indices also witnessed gains. The sensitive index rose by 4.02 pointsor 1.34 per cent to 303.68 points and float index went up by 1.25 points or1.22 per cent to 103.5 points.

The benchmark index had opened at1,423.83 points on Sunday and rested at 1,431.8 points for the day. Thesecondary market continued in the same trajectory on Monday and Tuesday. Thelocal bourse advanced to 1,443.8 points on Monday and to 1,456.07 points onTuesday. However, owing to selling pressure on Wednesday, Nepse dropped by15.78 points to 1,440.29 points on the last trading day of the week.

Capital market experts have statedmarket is being driven by fundamental reasons rather than external factors.“Major reason of fluctuation is excessive supply of shares and deposit crunchin financial system. These two reasons are affecting market movement,” said ShreejeshGhimire, CEO of NMB Capital Ltd.

The market rallied on the back ofinsurance subgroup in review period. The sector soared by 152.49 points or 2.09per cent to rest at 7,457.63 points. Share price of Nepal Life InsuranceCompany surged by 5.26 per cent to Rs 1,821 per unit, Sagarmatha InsuranceCompany went up by 3.04 per cent to Rs 1,390 per unit and share price of LifeInsurance Corporation Nepal rose by 2.79 per cent to Rs 1,989 per unit.

Similarly, sub-index of class ‘A’financial institutions rose by 13.04 points or 1.06 per cent to 1,244.95points. Share price of Everest Bank increased by 5.73 per cent to Rs 922 perunit and that of Himalayan Bank went up to Rs 663 per unit, with a gain of 2.95per cent.

Other sub-indices of financial groupalso increased during the week. The finance group went up by 2.72 points or0.37 per cent to 735.74 points. Likewise, the development banks sectorincreased by 18.87 points or 1.18 per cent to 1,614.82 points and the sub-indexof microfinance rose by 17.43 points or 1.01 per cent to 1,741.97 points.

The sub-index of hotels gained 36.82points or 1.74 per cent to 2,152.57 points. Similarly, sub-index of othersgroup rose by 9.72 points or 1.26 per cent to 783.07 points, hydropower groupwent up by 5.36 points or 0.28 per cent to 1,921.11 points and trading groupinched up by 1.69 points or 0.89 per cent to 192.4 points.

Meanwhile, manufacturing group fellby 18.2 points or 0.72 per cent to 2,506.8 points.

Altogether, 4.05 million shares of174 firms worth Rs 1.71 billion were traded through 17,393 transactions in theweek. The traded amount was 36.79 per cent less than total weekly turnover ofthe previous week.

Nepal Life Insurance Company securedtop position in terms of total turnover with Rs 237.65 million. It was followedby Sanima Mai Hydropower with Rs 93.66 million, Everest Bank with Rs 80.12million, Standard Chartered Bank with Rs 62.66 million and Nabil Bank with Rs48.62 million.

Nepal Life Insurance Company alsotopped list in terms of trading volume and total number of transactions with199,000 units of its shares changing hands through 1,475 transactions.

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Source:The Himalayan Times, 14^th January 2018