The market slowly started recovering this week. It had gone through a correction last week following a month-long bull run driven by Nepal Rastra Bank's (NRB's) raising of the minimum paid-up capital requirement for bank and financial institutions (BFIs).
"The market is rebounding following a brief correction last week. Investors are buoyed by the central bank's decision to set the new capital floor," Anant Kumar Poudyal, managing director of brokerage firm Online Securities Pvt Ltd, said.
"Expectations that BFIs will make more bonus share announcements this year are becoming real as many have already announcing handsome stock dividends in recent days as their annual general meeting dates draw closer. This has encouraged investors to buy more stock to clinch bonus shares," Poudyal added.
Still, stock brokers insist the market is also feeling a pinch from the recent rise in political tensions across the country. "There is also some effect from the political volatility. However, such effects have not been significant enough until now to reverse the bull ride," Poudyal said.
The Manufacturing and processing group registered the highest gains as its index jumped 26.98 points to close at 2,143.65 points. Banking, the heavyweight group, followed the suit. Its index shot up 13.44 points to finish at 1,099.38 points. The sub-index representing the Development Banks group also ended 7.56 points higher at the end of the weeks to close at 938.58 points. The Finance group index also went up 5.27 points to close at 556.59 points.
Investors in insurance companies, however, were the biggest losers of the week as the Insurance group index plunged 122.07 points to close at 5,083.31 points. Shares of the Hotels and the Hydropower groups also dived 45.35 points and 26.85 points, respectively, settling at 1,910.55 points and 2,018.68 points. The Others group also shed 18.79 points to close at 774.21 points. The index of the Trading group, however, remained unchanged at 206.99 points.
A total of 5.46 million units of shares of 162 companies worth Rs 2.17 billion were traded in the market this week through 10,933 transactions. Nabil Bank Ltd (Promoter), Siddhartha Growth Scheme I and Prabhu Bank were respectively at the top of the lists of companies with the highest turnover (Rs 169.27 million), traded units of shares (1.42 million units) and number of transactions (501).
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