October 3:  The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) lost 17.56 points or 0.88% and closed at 1958.72 points on the third trading day of the week, Tuesday. The secondary benchmark index lost 17.58 points against its gain of 5.19 points in yesterday’s trading.

Experienced investors and stock market analysts attributed to the influence of the festive season as the cause of the consistent decline in the stock market.  They believe that the market could see further corrections during the Dashain festival, a major festival in Nepal.

Experts in the stock market suggest that a bullish trend is unlikely to start unless the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) eases its policies related to the stock market.

One investor said, “Market could see some corrections due to the Dashain festival. But, it could pick up the upward momentum if the NRB changes the cap of 120 million cap on the margin loan,” the investor said.

During today’s trading session, a total of 281 scrips were traded through the total of 55,096 transactions. As many as 3,965,917 shares exchanged their hands, amounting to Rs 1.19 billion.

Citizen Life Insurance had the highest turnover of Rs 5.59 crores, closing at a price of Rs 446 per share.

Samata Gharelu Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha gained the highest percent of Rs 7.91, closing at a price of Rs 696 per share, while Samudayik Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha lost the highest percent of 7.54%, closing at a price of Rs 779.

Sensitive Index lost 0.97%, while Float Index and Sensitive Float Index shrunk by 0.87% and 1.06% respectively.

All sector indices closed in the red territory. Trading SubIndex lost the highest 1.47% while the Banking SubIndex lost the least of 0.61%.