Insurance companies fuel trading

Insurance companies gained hugely to push the stock exchange index up by  19.78 points or 2.4 per cent to close the market at 823.49 points from the opening of 803.71 points this week.

The Nepse index also rallied on latest development in the politics.

Though some of the insurance companies stocks have around 100 profit to earning (PE) ratio, investors bought the insurance stocks that are already overpriced.

However, the increase in index could not fuel transaction volume that witnessed a drop by 30 per cent this week.

The exchange saw trading of 2.8 million units of shares worth Rs 1.12 billion in 9,386 transactions, whereas last week, the market witnessed trading of 5.2 million unit of shares worth Rs 1.6 billion in 13,492 transactions.
But all the subgroups – except manufacturing and hotels – gained in the five-day trading of Nepse.

Nepal Life Insurance topped the charts in terms of transaction volume with trading of shares worth Rs 73.3 million, whereas, Nabil Balanced Fund I was the forerunner – with trading of 544,491 units – in terms of number of shares traded for the week.

Likewise, Sanima Mai Hydropower was the forerunner with 1,291 transactions, in terms of number of transactions.

Among the top five companies in terms of transaction volume, Nepal Life Insurance (Rs 73.3 million) led followed by Chilime Hydropower (Rs 61.7 million), National Life Insurance (Rs 59.4 million), Prime Life Insurance (Rs 57.2 million) and Asian Life Insurance (Rs 52.8 million).