Nepal Telecom shares push stock market up

The entry of Nepal Telecom’s shares this week pulled the stock market back from its corrective mood with the Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) index, which dropped by double digits last week, gaining 62.29 points at the end of this week to finish at 1119.65 points.
The price of Nepal Telecom’s shares went up by around 36 percent to close at Rs 1,225 on Thursday, the last day of transaction of the week. According to NEPSE, the telecom shares recorded a total turnover of Rs 95.62 million traded in 375 transactions, the highest among all companies this week.

Nepal Telecom’s rise also caused the index of the Other groups to nearly double. The group’s index was pushed up by 669.85 points to finish at 1439.06 points.

Other gainers this week were the Development Banks group and Trading group, whose indices nudged up by 5.75 points and 7.45 points respectively to end at 1503.83 points and 210.59 points.

A statement from NEPSE said that 692,590 units of shares worth Rs 650.01 million were traded through 3,649 transactions during the week at the sole secondary share market of the country. In term of transaction amount, total transaction recorded during this week was 12.7 percent higher than that of last week.

Last week, 488,394 units of shares worth Rs 576.8 million were exchanged through 3,748 transactions.

The Sensitive Index, the indicator of transaction of the ‘A’ category companies, lost 13.24 points to end at 269.1 points. Transaction of the category ‘A’ companies accounted for 53.64 percent of all transactions this week.

The group index of commercial banks’ shares lost 57.61 points this week to finish at 1040.91 points.

Shares of hydropower companies also met the same fate with their group index falling by 40.71 points from the week’s opening of 1285.16 points.

The indices of the Hotel group and the Insurance group slid 7.71 and 11.17 points respectively to drop to 352.44 and 879.61 points.

The Finance group’s index went down 2.93 points from 178.84 points.

Kist Merchant Banking and Finance topped other companies in terms of transaction amount and number of shares traded which were Rs 134 million and 208,000 respectively during the week.

In term of transaction amount, the top five companies this week were Kist Merchant Banking and Finance, Nepal Telecom, Bank of Kathmandu, Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank and Capital Merchant Banking and Finance respectively.