Stock exchange goes down by 16 points

KATHMANDU: Shareholders of hydropower companies, commercial banks, finance companies, trading firms, development banks and insurance companies lost this week, pulling Nepse down by 16 points to 700.01 points from its opening 716.01 points on Sunday.However, investors might get temporary confidence and the shares of existing banks and financial institutions might flare due to Nepal Rastra Bank’s new policy of putting a temporary halt to the issuance of licences to Group A, B and C banks and financial institutions. Nepse has over 85 per cent dominance of banks and financial institutions.Hydropower companies, commercial banks and finance companies sub-groups lost heavily with their indices plunging by 29 points to 948.19 points from Sunday’s opening of 977.19 points, 24.07 points to 728.26 points from Sunday’s opening of 752.33 points and 14.16 points to 678.41 points from Sunday’s opening of 692.57 points, respectively.The trading sub-group also lost 8.57 points to dip to 281.78 points from the opening 290.35 points, whereas development banks sub-group lost 7.33 points to drop to 741.15 points from the opening 748.48 points. The insurance sub-group slid by 5.07 points to 646.24 points from the opening 651.31 points.Of nine sub-groups, two — manufacturing and hotels — saw no trading but the others sub-group was the only gainer with a 1.17-point gain to rise to 670.86 points from Sunday’s opening of 669.69 points. Transaction amount decreased by 44.29 per cent to Rs 263.38 million against last week’s Rs 472.82 million.In the total transactions, Group-A companies contributed 46.75 per cent. The 78-scrip sensitive index — a barometer of Group-A companies — lost 5.49 points from the opening 190.46 points. Float index — calculated on the basis of real transactions — skidded 1.94 points to 67.22 from 69.16 points.Citizens’ Bank International (Rs 21.42m) topped in terms of trading amount followed by Nepal Investment Bank (Rs 20.69m), Bank of Asia Nepal (Rs 17.06m), National Hydropower Company (Rs 16.30m) and Nepal Bangladesh Bank (Rs 14.55m).In terms of number of share units traded, National Hydropower Company topped with 1,73,000-unit shares changing hands while in terms of number of transactions Bank of Asia Nepal topped the chart with 460 transactions.