KATHMANDU: The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index dropped 85.47 points this week, closing trading at 2,596.82 on Thursday – the week’s last trading day.
This marks the first time since October 7 that the benchmark index has fallen below the psychological 2,600-point level.
The market opened for trading at 2,682.29 this week on Monday as Sunday was a public holiday. Of the four trading days this week, Nepse recorded losses on three. The benchmark index tanked 51.37 points on Monday. Although it posted a marginal gain of 2.95 points on Tuesday, it posted losses of 5.6 points and 31.43 points on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Overall, the benchmark index declined by 3.19% this week.
Securities worth Rs 19.3 billion were traded on the bourse over the past four trading days this week – a 32.72% drop compared to Rs 28.59 billion of the previous week. Average daily turnover stood at Rs 4.82 billion, down 15.9% from Rs 5.73 billion last week. The number of shares traded also saw a steep decline. A total of 39.66 million units of securities were traded on the bourse this week – 35.44% down from last week’s 61.44 million.
Investors lost Rs 141.75 billion this week as total market capitalization shrank to Rs 4.3 trillion, down from Rs 4.44 trillion last week.
All trading groups ended the week in the red. The Trading sub-index experienced the steepest decline, going down by 5.17% compared to last week. This was followed by the Finance, Hydropower, and Development Bank sub-indices, which dropped by 4.79%, 4.07%, and 4.06%, respectively.