Nepse's chin just above water

Commercial banks -- the key player in the secondary market -- followed by others and hydropower sub-groups rescued Nepse from sliding below the 600-point mark.
They propelled Nepse by 13.18 points to reach 627.97 points from Sunday morning's opening of 604.65 points. Nepse seems to be hovering at 600 points for a while.
Of the nine sub-groups -- commercial banks gained a whopping 21.91 points to rise to 626.56 points, others sub-group gained 12.92 points to reach 657.94 points and hydropower sub-group gained 4.69 points to reach 833.25 points. Four sub-groups lost this week and two sub-groups -- hotels and manufacturing -- did not see any trading of their shares this week.
The week started in the green but could not continue as on the fourth and fifth day Nepse lost points to settle at 627.97 points.
This week, National Hydropower topped the chart in terms of transaction amount as its shares were traded at Rs 75.04 million. Standard Chartered Bank Nepal followed with Rs 53.36 million, and NIC Bank (with Rs 37.41 million), Bank of Kathmandu (with Rs 25.95 million) and Nabil Bank (with Rs 22.32 million) managed to come in the top five slot, respectively.
In terms of number of share units traded also, National Hydropower topped the chart with 8,42,000-unit shares changing hands while in terms of number of transactions Pashupati Development Bank topped the chart with 439 transactions.
However, the transaction amount decreased by 9.46 percent this week against last week's increase of 40.08 per cent to Rs 483.89 million. Similarly, Group-A companies' contribution also dropped to 48.75 per cent against last week's 70.71 per cent whereas the 78-scrip sensitive index -- a barometer of Group-A companies -- gained 3.10 points to 160.52 points. The float index -- calculated on the basis of real transactions -- also rose by a mere 1.17 points to 59.70 points.
This week over 3.46 million-unit rights and bonus shares of NMB Bank and Om Finance were listed in the secondary market whereas in the fiscal year 2008-09, bonus shares of 37 companies worth Rs 1,924.77 million, rights share of of 50 companies worth Rs 9,307.8 million and ordinary shares of 14 companies worth Rs 19,087.5 million had been listed.

Asian Life Insurance to float shares
KATHMANDU: Securities Board of Nepal (Sebon) has permitted Asian Life Insurance Company to issue 1.08-million units of share with face value of Rs 100 per unit to the public. The company that has Rs 360 million paid-up capital is issuing 30 per cent public shares, said a press release. NIDC Capital Market is the issue manager and sales manager. Currently, Nepse has 17 insurance companies -- totalling to 20,467,884-unit that has Rs 2,046,788,400 paid up capital -- under the insurance companies sub-group.