By Sagar Ghimire
 

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index declined 1.02 point last week with closing at 548.98. It had closed at 550 on September 15.

Though there was slight improvement on first and second days of trading week, the latter days observed decline in the share market. On the first and second day of trading, the Nepse index increased by 0.18 and 2 points respectively. However, the market plunged by 0.05 point last Tuesday. The market index declined 2.97 at the last day of the trading week. The decline of Bank and Hydropower sector, major sectors that impact the share market, pushed the overall Nepse index down.

Despite banking and financial institutions’ rush to announce dividend, the failure to meet the expectation by some big banks has created a psychological effect in the share market. Share investors lament that the major banks like Nabil Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Everest Bank’s decision to distribute lower dividends than they expected have discouraged them to make investment on those banks, whose share prices, transactions and scrips are relatively higher in the capital market. Standard Chartered Bank has announced that it will distribute 10 per cent bonus share and 40 per cent cash dividend. This led to the decline of the share price of the Standard Chartered by Rs 35 on a single day at the end of the trading week (September 19) with closing at Rs 1795.

“Our hopes have been dashed by the decisions. We had expected that the bank would provide at least 25 per cent bonus and 25 per cent cash dividend,” commented an investor Purshottam Raj Chimoriya.

During the week, a total of 2,111,643 scrips were traded through 8182 transactions worth Rs 587.98 million of 134 companies. The share market remained open for four days during the week. The total tradeed amount was 39.52 per cent less than the previous week. Everest Bank remained at the top of the market in terms of transaction amount, while the highest number of scrips were of Siddhartha Investment Growth Scheme 1 (262,600).

Among the sub-indices, the Insurance sector surged the highest by 60.11 points closing at 1346.57, while the Hydropower sector declined the most by 16.54 points closing at 1298.23. Similarly, Hotel sector index also increased 27.64 points. The other sub-indices which observed decline during the week are Development Bank (3.52), Bank (3.91), and Finance (0.72). However, there was not any change in the Manufacturing and Processing sector, Trading sector and Other sectors. The share prices of 40 companies increased during the week while that of 62 price decreased.

Nepse Fall Continues

Following the declining trend of last week, the Nepse index fell further by 7.07 points on Sunday, September 22, closing at 541.51. The secondary market plunged heavily as all sub-indices except the Others sector observed a decline. The Hydropower sector had the biggest loss with a decline of 31.25 points closing at 1266.98, while the Others sector rose by 1.17 points, closing at 662.63. There was no change observed in the Finance sector. The Banking sector which impacts the capital market the most also fell by 9.7 points closing at 516.59. Shares of 110 companies were traded at the secondary market on the opening day of the week through 1797 transactions, amounting to Rs 114,008,016.