Weekly share update: Bearish mood continues to grip Nepse Kathmandu, September 3: With a continuous fall in share prices of commercial banks, share trading at the country’s sole secondary market, the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) registered yet another dismal performance, with a fall of 4.45 points this week. According to figures released by the Nepse, the index opened at 293.85 points on Sunday, and went down to 289.40 points on Thursday, the last day for share transactions under the regular lot. The bearish trend at the Nepse floor started four weeks ago with the index falling by over four points. According to group-wise analysis, the commercial banks group suffered yet another huge loss of over five points. The manufacturing and the finance groups, however, managed a marginal growth. Along with the fall in Nepse index, the weekly total transaction value also decreased and stood at Rs 30,923,152 from 2,801 transactions of 124,555 share units. Last week’s total trading value was of Rs 42,833,388 through 2,177 transactions of 133,572 shares. Of the listed 66 companies for share trading, 57 companies saw transactions this week. The commercial banks group, the largest scrip by volume at the Nepse floor suffered a loss of 5.57 points. The group’s index that opened at 315.16 points on Sunday declined to close at 309.59 points on the closing day. The group had suffered a loss of over three points last week. The insurance and the development banks groups’ index also closed down at 315.61 points and 225.05 points on Thursday from the opening 320.36 points and 225.86 points respectively on Sunday. However, the manufacturing group registered a marginal growth as its index climbed up to 291.74 points from the opening 291.71 points on Sunday. The finance group, which had also posted a marginal growth last week, rose to 230.17 points from the opening 229.49 points on Sunday. The hotel group, the other group and the trading group, however, remained constant this week at 179.34 points, 335.09 points and 134.95 points, respectively. Besides the other group, the hotel and the trading groups had registered a growth last week. Of the listed eight groups at Nepse floor, the commercial banks group continued its domination by capturing the largest chunk of shares at Nepse. It captured 71.74 per cent of the total share. The finance group came in behind, accounting for 18.45 per cent. The insurance group had 7.02 per cent, while the other group contributed 1.48 per cent. The development bank group followed with a share of 1.19 per cent and the hotel group had a mere 0.13 per cent. Prudential Insurance topped all companies in terms of number of transactions with 692 transactions this week. People’s Finance Ltd, however, came ahead in terms of the number of shares, with a total of 22,630 shares traded for the week. Bank of Kathmandu stood first in terms of monetary value as its total transacted value stood at Rs 4,807,672. The Nepse floor remained open for five working days, where shares of Nepal Investment Bank, Standard Chartered Bank Nepal, Himalayan Bank Ltd, Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Everest Bank Ltd, Bank of Kathmandu, NIC Bank Ltd, Machhapuchre Bank Ltd, Kumari Bank Ltd, Lumbini Bank Ltd, NCC Bank Ltd, Prudential Insurance, and Birat Shoe Company were traded.