KATHMANDU, March 15: Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) on Wednesday fell 14.44 points to close at 1,938.62 points.

The secondary market opened at 1,953.06 points and went to a straight fall hitting the day’s low at 1,926.91 points in the second half of the trading hours. However, the market bounced back by around 12 points in the remaining trading time.

The market, which inched up by a nominal value on Tuesday, followed a bearish trend although most of the banks have started lowering their interest rates of late and there is an improvement in the external sector indicators of the country. According to stockbrokers, investors have failed to gather confidence due to the increasing state’s debt triggered by worsening budget deficit.

In the intraday trading, 149 listed companies lost in their market values, while only 51 companies registered as gainers. The sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chip companies declined 3.03 points.

The daily turnover amount increased marginally to Rs 1.20 billion from Rs 1.13 billion on Tuesday. Out of the 13 groups, only trading added 10.57 points.  Of the 12 losers, six lost double-digit points.

The Microfinance group lost the biggest 1.86 percent in its market value. Recently, a number of anomalies in microfinance companies have surfaced while their non-performing loans have also surged by a notable amount as of the first half of the current fiscal year, Nepal Rastra Bank reports.   

Among individual companies, NIC Asia Bank was registered for holding the largest single-day transaction of its shares worth Rs 103.52 million. Kisan Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited was the topmost loser, while Unique Nepal Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited gained the highest percent of its market price.

 
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