In a volatile trading day that was marked by high volume selling of shares followed by a rapid recovery, Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) recorded a turnover of Rs 5.04 billion on Thursday, the highest daily turnover of the last 11 months. With the investors continuing buying of shares on the back of the Nepal Rastra Bank amending guidelines on working capital loans on Wednesday and hopes that banks will reduce interest rates for the month of Magh, the stock market ended the last trading day of the week with a gain of 18.09 points. The Nepse index opened at 2,135.23 points and went to an intraday high of 2,159.22 points before closing at 2,143.93 points. Buoyancy in the market can be gauged by the fact that the number of traded shares increased by 44 percent on Thursday. Volatility was seen in the market with the market hitting an intra-day low of 2,114.01 as many investors sought profit booking by selling the shares they had purchased in the previous days. A total of 12. 58 million shares were traded on Thursday compared to 8.73 million on Wednesday.

Except for banking and other indices, all the other sub-indices turned green on Thursday with the hotel and tourism sub-index recording the highest 5.75 percent gain.

Himalayan Distillery Limited recorded the highest turnover of Rs 431.9 million while the shares of Himal Dolakha Hydropower Company Limited (HDHPC) were the most traded. On Thursday, the share prices of five companies hit the positive circuit after increasing by 10 percent. The share price of Chandragiri Hills, Buddha Bhumi Hydropower, Dhaulagiri Microfinance, Khaptad Microfinance, and Srijansheel Microfinance increased by 10 percent. 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 278.29 points in the last two weeks. The confidence of stock investors 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. With the liquidity position in the banking sector gradually improving, stock investors said they are now getting phones from the banks and financial institutions (BFIs) requesting them to take margin loans.