The bullish trend at the Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) showed no signs of abating as it continued to soar for two straight weeks. The Nepse index kept registering new historic highs throughout the week, a growth attributed to the strong performance of commercial banks at the stock market.

The Nepse index registered a healthy double-digit growth of 19.82 points to reach a new high of 613.47 points this week. After the stock market opened at 593.65 points on Sunday, it continued to climb all through the week and on Tuesday it set a new record by crossing 600-points mark for the first time in its history. According to trade analysts, soaring share prices of commercial banks, finance companies and hydropower companies supported the growth.

The weekly turnover also increased significantly this week to Rs 497.4 million with 1,453,396 unit shares being traded through 2,326 transactions, against last week’s figure of Rs 257 million through the trading of 624,893 shares. Out of the total 87 listed companies, 68 companies saw their transactions this week. The group wise share trading analysis shows that all major groups including commercial banks and insurance groups posted an impressive growth.

Stock market analysts have been somewhat bewildered by the unusual growth in major indices saying that it is largely caused by speculative buying and investors’ pinning their hopes on the economy which they think would gain momentum soon.