Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: The bourse market witnessed a volatile session on Thursday, as the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index gained 22.59 points to close at 2,852.18.
Although the market opened sharply and surged by 4% within the first three minutes of trading, triggering an automatic trading suspension of 20 minutes, the benchmark took a downward trajectory after hitting an intra-day high of 2,874.14 points, but still ended the last trading day of the week 0.68% higher
The rally followed the central bank’s decision to remove the Rs 250 million ceiling for margin loans as per the recommendation of the Capital Market Reform Task Force formed by Minister for Finance Rameshore Prasad Khanal.
NRB has also scrapped a provision that allowed banks to sell only up to 20% of their investments in primary capital within a fiscal year from shareholdings held for more than one year. Similarly, banks will now be able to invest in shares and debentures of listed companies for periods exceeding six months. Such investments were earlier permitted only for maturities longer than one year.
Turnover improved to Rs 5.27 billion on Thursday. Securities worth Rs 11.83 million were traded through 56,231 transactions during the session.
Shivam Cement topped the turnover chart with Rs 273.46 million worth of shares traded. Next were Union Hydropower Ltd and Himalayan Reinsurance Ltd with turnovers of Rs 271.2 million and Rs 209.31 million, respectively.
Except for the Trading sub-index, which was down 1.48%, all trading groups ended the session in the green. The Investment sub-index posted the highest gain of 1.61%. Next were Finance and Life Insurance sub-indices with gains of 1.3% and 1.23%, respectively.
