Kist dominates share trading

Kist Merchant Banking and Finance -- recently upgraded to the country's 26th commercial bank -- pushed Global Bank to second position this week while dominating Nepse in terms of share units traded and trading amount with 79,000-unit shares of it changing hands in Rs 24.91 million. However, in terms of number of transactions Global Bank continued to top the chart with 705 transactions.
Kist Merchant Banking and Finance (with Rs 24.91 million), Global Bank (with Rs 24.88 million), Nepal SBI Bank (with Rs 21.35 million), Standard Chartered Bank Nepal (with Rs 19.85 million) and Sanima Bikas Bank (with Rs 19.40 million) were the top performers of this week.Of the nine-sub groups' indices, two -- hotels and trading sub-groups -- did not witness any changes in their indices as their shares were not traded. Similarly, two sub-groups -- manufacturing and others -- gained by 4.93 points to reach 438.21 points and 5.87 points to reach 605.08 points, respectively. The others sub-group gained because of Nepal Telecom as the company is distributing 25 per cent cash dividends from this week.
The other five sub-groups lost due to low investor confidence though the transaction amount increased by 8.37 per cent to rise to Rs 236.55 million against last week's transaction, according to Nepse.
The finance companies sub-group plunged by 23.45 points to dip to 732.75 points while hydropower companies' sub-group lost 16.73 points to drop to 843.63 points. Similarly, insurance companies sub-group shed 14.71 points to drop to 636.88 points and commercial banks sub-group faltered by 12.82 points to drop to 649.56 points. The development banks sub-group slipped by 7.10 points to drop to 821.93 points.
The major sub-groups' plunge dragged Nepse down by 9.24 points to close weekly trading at 647.78 points from last week's closing of 657.02 points.The 78-scrip sensitive index -- considered blue chip shares in the domestic market -- also lost 3.77 points to drop to 172.24 points from last week's closing of 176.01 points. Similarly, the float index -- calculated on the basis of real transactions -- also lost 1.18 points to close at 63.21 points from last week's closing of 64.39 points.
The week started in the red on Sunday as Nepse shed 7.98 points to drop to 649.04 from last week's closing of 657.02 points. Monday witnessed a further drop by 8.88 points but Tuesday onwards Nepse tried to rebound with a gain of 1.48 points to 641.64 points on Tuesday. The gaining trend continued on Wednesday and Thursday to close the weekly trading at 647.78 points.
The sole secondary market's five-day trading saw 1,26,983-unit of bonus shares of Birgunj Finance being listed.