Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse), which opened at 518.77 points on Sunday, had shed 7.32 points on the same day to close at 511.45 points. [break]Although the losses were recovered by Tuesday, when the benchmark index closed at 519 points, the market lost value on the remaining days to close the week at 513.28 points on Thursday -- the last trading day of the week.
“Stock investors are concerned about the newly installed technocratic government´s ability to hold timely election as leading political parties have failed to reach a consensus on amendment of the Election of Members of the Constituent Assembly Act,” Stockbroker Nanda Kishore Mundada said.
Arrival of third-quarter end is also exerting selling pressure on investors as many have to pay interest on loans that they acquired to purchase stocks, Mundada further said.
A look at Nepse´s weekly report shows that most of the major sub-indices had fallen over the week.
Banking sub-index, for instance, fell to 513.93 points by Thursday from 521.10 points recorded on Sunday morning as share price of most of the leading banks fell. Nabil Bank´s share price fell to Rs 1,808 by Thursday from Sunday´s Rs 1,852, while share price of Standard Chartered Bank Nepal dipped to Rs 1,805 from Rs 1,869 recorded on Sunday. Similarly, share price of Everest Bank shed Rs 21 over the week to close at Rs 1,554 on Thursday, while Nepal Investment Bank´s share price fell to Rs 768 from Rs 770 on Sunday. Himalayan Bank too saw its share value go down by Rs 15 over the week to close at Rs 760 on Thursday.
Together with fall in share prices of leading banks, four-rupee fall in share price of Nepal Telecom, which contributes to 25 percent of the market capitalization, to Rs 571, also played some role in bringing the benchmark index down.
Amid this scenario, the only positive news came from insurance sector which made moderate gain of 2.92 points over the week to close the week´s trading at 872.82 points. The demand for shares of insurance companies is increasing these days as many have to issue rights shares to boost their paid-up capital base within mid-July as instructed by the insurance sector regulator.
This week, shares worth Rs 412.58 million were traded on the stock market, up 27 percent from that of previous week.
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