The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index, which opened at 517.87 points on Sunday, climbed to almost three-year high of 541.1 points by Thursday, the last trading day of the week. [break]
As in the past weeks, stocks of commercial banks played a key role in taking the benchmark index to the height last scaled on January 4, 2010.
During the week, share prices of leading banks made remarkable gains, which helped banking index to post a hike of 37.73 points, or 7.56 percent, to 536.85 points.
Of the banks with largest market capitalization, Nabil Bank made the biggest gain with its stock price recording a hike of Rs 145 to Rs 1,701. Close on the heels was Standard Chartered Bank Nepal, which added 6.5 percent to its stock value to end the week at Rs 2,130. Everest Bank, Nepal Investment Bank and Himalayan Bank also saw their stock prices go up by Rs 85, Rs 46 and Rs 41, respectively, to Rs 1,395, Rs 864 and Rs 842.
Among others, stocks of Nepal Telecom, which makes up around 25 percent of the total market capitalization, made a moderate gain of Rs 5 to Rs 664 during the week. Stocks of other listed companies also rose, indicating an upbeat market sentiment.
As the investor sentiment remained robust, the share transaction amount during the week reached Rs 735.53 million. Although the total trading amount was relatively bigger considering performance of other weeks, it marked a decline of 3.04 percent, as the stock exchange remained open for only four days due to public holiday on Tuesday.
Lately, the stock market has been drawing lot of investor interest as there are not many investment avenues in the country. Besides, the interest shown by financial institutions in extending margin loans - credit extended by financial institutions on guarantee extended by stock brokers - at relatively affordable rates of 13 to 14 percent has also lured many to the stock market, according to stock brokers.