Nepse scrambles to retain footing

It was a sad week again for investors as majority of them lost this time too. The secondary market was down due to low investor confidence resulting in the Nepse index dipping by 6.84 points to close at 670.68 points from Sunday's opening of 677.52 points.
The 78-scrip sensitive index -- considered blue chip shares -- also closed at 177.78 points from Sunday's opening of 178.60 points. Similarly, the float index -- calculated on the basis of real transactions -- also lost, albeit by a mere 0.14 point to drop to 65.76 points from Sunday's opening of 65.90 points.
Investors of all key market propellers -- commercial banks, insurance companies, hydropower companies and other groups -- lost this week.
Lucky were the investors of development banks and finance companies, which gained respectively.
Commercial banks lost 5.86 points to drop to 662.75 points, insurance companies lost 13.30 points to dip to 680.42 points, hydropower companies lost 7.72 points to drop to 831.06 points while other groups plunged to 640.32 points from Sunday's opening.
During the five-day trading session this week, Nepse closed on a green note only one day in the middle of the week on Tuesday, losing the other four days.
Nepse dropped by 1.22 points to 676.30 on Sunday from its opening of 677.52 points. On Monday, it further slid by 2.80 points to 673.70 points. However, on Tuesday it bounced back by 2.07 points to reach 675.77 points.
The sole secondary market index plunged by 2.78 points to 672.99 points on Wednesday. Thursday, the last day of trading in the domestic market, also witnessed a drop of 2.31 points to close the weekly market at 670.68 points.
However, the transaction amount for this week increased by 15.16 per cent to 281.48 million as against last week's decrease by 21.19 per cent that had dropped to Rs 244.63 million.
Group-A companies still played a dominant role in the total transaction though the group witnessed 66.83 per cent transaction as against last week's 78.44 per cent transaction.
This week's top performers were National Life Insurance (with Rs 65.19 million), Standard Chartered Bank Nepal (with Rs 19.56 million), Nepal Development and Employment Promotion Bank (with Rs 19.15 million), Bank of Kathmandu (with Rs 15.20 million) and Nepal Investment Bank (with Rs 12.29 million).
In terms of share units traded, National Life Insurance Company topped the chart with 68,000-unit shares whereas in terms of number of transactions Nepal Development and Employment Promotion Bank topped the chart with 792 transactions.
This week, six companies -- including one hotel and one insurance company each -- listed their bonus shares and three companies -- two insurance companies and one finance company -- listed their rights shares at Nepse where not a single transaction of government bonds and debentures was witnessed.