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The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) last week increased 6.93 points (0.25 percent) amid the government’s ongoing investigations against a number of high profile persons in the prospect of money laundering cases.

The secondary market that opened at 2,738.72 points last week, closed at 2,738.72 points. In a five-day trading session, the market opened at a negative note with a plunge of 34.63 points on Monday, which was followed by a modest increase of 8.78 points on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the market again slid 1.64 points and a marginal gain of 6.94 points was registered on the next day. The index surged 27.49 points on Friday, to close for the week.

Ten groups were the gainers as hotels and tourism escalated 38.82 points. The manufacturing and processing sector lost the largest of 136.29 points. Percentage-wise, the development bank index plunged by the highest of 1.50 percent.

Along with the NEPSE index, the average daily turnover declined to Rs 3.42 billion from Rs 5.29 billion, marking a decline of 35.34 percent. Among individual companies, Jhapa Energy witnessed the highest gain of 17.65 percent in its market price. Likewise, the share price of Corporate Development Bank plunged by 15.17 percent, the topmost of all.

Market capitalization increased to Rs 4.682 trillion from Rs 4.671 trillion, making the investors earn capital gains of Rs 118 billion of their book values. In the previous week, investors had a loss of Rs 85 billion.