The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index has surged past the 2000 mark for the first time in four months. The benchmark index had dropped below 2000 points on August 27 amid a bearish run that began over a year ago. After the new government noted in its first meeting that problems in the country's capital market will be resolved in the coming days, the stock market bounced back 161.82 points in the last four trading days. On Thursday, the Nepse index surged by 56.87 points to close at 2,029.03 points. Shares of 257 listed companies were traded and the total turnover stood at Rs 2.86 billion. The confidence of stock investors seems to have returned after the new government assured that it would address problems in liquidity management and will work to bring down the persistently higher interest rates.

Thursday's gain in Nepse has been attributed to the further easing of liquidity in the financial system with the Nepal Rastra Bank issuing a repo of Rs 50 billion for liquidity management of banks and financial institutions.

All the subgroups recorded gains on Thursday. The banking subindices rose by 24 points, development bank by 116 points, finance by 87 points, hotel and tourism by 76 points, hydropower by 105 points, life insurance by 385 points, manufacturing by 112 points, microfinance by 113 points, non-life insurance by 348 points, and trading by 47 points. On Thursday's trading, the share price of 208 companies increased while 6 companies saw their share prices decrease. The price of 8 companies increased by around 10 percent hitting the circuit breaker. Himalayan Distillery Limited (HDL) had the highest turnover of Rs 121.4 million while the shares of Himal Dolakha Hydropower Company Limited (HDHPC) traded the most. The share prices of Himalaya Energy Development, Sanima Life Insurance, Srijanshil Microfinance increased by 10 percent on Thursday. Similarly, the share prices of Dhaulagiri Microfinance, Azod Insurance, Prabhu Life Insurance, Swetaganga Hydropower, and Reliance Life Insurance surged by 9.9 percent. Nepse after the formation of the new government  

Date Nepse Index Growth Daily Turnover Dec 29 56.87 points Rs 2.83bn Dec 28 -11.80 points             Rs 2.13bn Dec 27 59.86 points Rs 3.77bn Dec 26 56.87 points Rs 2.08bn