Nepal’s share market experienced a dramatic fall on Thursday. The benchmark of the stock market, NEPSE, recorded a three-digit fall of 160.33 points on Thursday. The share transaction has been closed for today after the NEPSE fell by 6 per cent, following the third negative circuit break. With significant fall in the share market, the index has dropped to 2,511.91 points.

The stock market has slumped to its lowest point in a year. Previously, on September 30, 2024, the NEPSE stood at 2508.86 points. However, the NEPSE index had climbed up to 3,000 points.

The market witnessed a sharp fall within minutes of opening. The first circuit break was activated just two minutes after the trading began, as the index dropped by 4 per cent, prompting a 20-minute suspension.

However, the downward spiral continued. Within a minute of reopening at 11:22 AM, the market fell by another 1 per cent, causing a second circuit break and halting trading for 40 minutes.

After resuming at 12:03 PM, the market dropped by another 1 per cent in just three minutes, triggering the third and final circuit break, and shutting down trading for the rest of the day.

This steep drop comes after the market reopened on Thursday following a nine-day closure due to the Gen-Z protest on September 8–9 and the subsequent instability in the market environment.

On its last trading day, September 8, NEPSE had already dropped by 35.99 points. The sensitive index which measures the performance of group ‘A’ companies decreased by 26.08 points to close at 436.21 points.

With the significant fall in NEPSE, the transaction amount was limited to only Rs. 728 million. A total of 1,752,781 shares worth Rs. 728 million of 238 companies were bought and sold in 7,435 transactions today.

Massive decline across all sectors

All sectoral sub-indices ended the day in red. Sub-index of the life insurance group saw the highest fall of 840.31 points followed by the non-life insurance and hotels and tourism group whose indices decreased by 656.05 points and 487.28 points respectively.

Similarly, sub-index of manufacturing and processing group dropped by 369.76 points, trading by 364.64 points, development bank by 287.67 points, microfinance by 202.74 points and others' by194.46 points.

The sub-index of hydropower group decreased by 182.44 points, finance by 106.36 points, banking by 77.58 points, investment by 7.66 points and mutual fund by 0.06 points When the share price of 230 companies decreased, 10 companies increased in today’s transaction.

Share prices of eight companies, including Unnati Sahakarya Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha, Nepal Reinsurance Company, Nepal Micro Insurance Company, Trade Tower Limited, Sindhu Bikash Bank, IGI Prudential Insurance and Synergy Power Development have decreased by 10 per cent each.

Similarly, share prices of Crest Micro Life Insurance, Himalayan Reinsurance and Saptakoshi Development Bank decreased by 9.99 per cent each while share price of Chandragiri Hills by 9.98 per cent.

However, share price of Him Star Urja Company Limited increased by 9.99 per cent while share price of Aviyan Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha increased by 2 per cent.

By Laxman Kafle