Weekly share update : Nepse stays above 1000-pt mark Kathmandu, December 15: Nepali capital market is showing no signs of slowing down. Led by the development banks and hydropower companies — without real sector’s participation — Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) has registered a four digit growth to 1000.91 points this week. Led by Development banks group that surged by 351.54 points, Hydropower group that flared by 98.29 points, Insurance group that surged by 89.94 points and Finance companies group that flared by 48.22 points, the Nepse index posted 25.42 points growth this week to register 1025.91 points at the closing on Thursday, the last day of the trading. On Sunday, the first day of the trading, Nepse posted 1000.49 points but it slowed down on Monday and posted 992.20 points, a fall by 8.29 points. But on Tuesday, the index posted a growth of 4.09 points to 996.29 points. On Wednesday, it again crossed 1000 points mark and posted 1000.27 points. On Thursday, the last day of the trading, however, the floor closed before the normal trading hour after posting a growth of whopping 25.64 points to 1025.91 points. The trading was then halted for the whole day before half an hour on that day. Normally the trading starts at 12 noon at the Nepse floor and closes at 2.00 PM. Earlier in the day, the trading was halted for 15 minutes. But when the floor again opened, the Nepse showed no sign of slowdown and reached the circuit breaker. This week witnessed an exceptional growth of Development bank’s group index but Commercial bank’s group posted a loss of 4.67 points to record 1056.27 points from opening 1060.94 points. Though the bull run continued at the Nepse its sustainability is still questioned as the shares of banks that have negative networth and abnormal PE ratios are also picking up. Nepse and Securities Board of Nepal have repeatedly warned the investors to go through performance of any institutions, before betting their hard-earned money. The transaction of Standard Chartered Bank’s shares — that was halted after its book closure — also pushed the Nepse up on the last day of the trading leading to a trading halt. Manufacturing group, Trading group and Others group posted no changes in their indices this week. Similarly, Hotel group saw its trading and recorded a growth of 2.69 points to 285.85 points. Among the total transactions, companies under the ‘A’ category held 52.63 per cent this week. Similarly, in terms of monetary value, National Hydropower Company topped the chart with Rs 100.9 million. The other top grossers are Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Chilime Hydropower, Development Credit bank and Bank of Kathmandu. Meanwhile, National Hydropower Company topped the chart in terms of number of shares traded with 3,45,697 units of shares. However, in terms of number of transaction, Annapurna Bikas Bank topped the chart with 279 transactions. Altogether, 71 listed firms’ shares were traded at the floor this week, where 11,34,000-unit bonus shares of Everest Bank Ltd and 19,75,000-unit bonus shares of Nabil Bank Ltd and seven per cent preferential shares that will be transferred into ordinary shares were listed for the trading.