Finance Minister Prakash Saran Mahat on Monday met with stakeholders of the capital market including the Chairman of the Securities Board of Nepal (Sebon) and a delegation of stock investors, brokers and merchant bankers to discuss the issues and the ways to resolve the problems. Nevertheless, this initiative of the newly appointed finance minister failed to raise the confidence of weary investors as the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) plunged by 16.67 points on the second trading day of the week. Mahat first met the group of stock investors with whom he assured them of taking concrete steps to uplift the morale of the capital market. Then, he sat down with Sebon Chairman Ramesh Kumar Hamal and instructed him to bring forward concrete plans to reform the capital market. Unlike the appointment of Bishnu Poudel as finance minister in December 2022, the appointment of  Mahat has received a cold response from the stock market so far. The stock market lost 36.67 points in the two trading days after Mahat took charge of the Ministry of Finance.

While the new finance minister is trying to bolster the morale of the private sector and stock investors, the stock market is yet to respond positively.

The daily turnover also decreased on Monday compared to Sunday. Nepse recorded a daily turnover of Rs 920.24m on Monday against Rs 1.20bn on Sunday. On Monday, the Nepse opened at 1,888.61 points and hit an intraday high of 1,891.76 points before rising to the intraday low of 1,866.16 points and settling at 1,871.88 points. Along with the daily turnover, the number of trade shares also decreased on Monday. The number of shares traded decreased to 2.82m scripts from 3.78m on Sunday. Except for the trading sub-index, all the sub-indices turned red on Monday with the hydropower sub-index losing the most. Nabil Bank had the highest turnover of Rs 30.62m closing at a market price of Rs 589.9 per share. The shares of the Global IME Bank were the most traded on Monday.