NEPSE Markets Daily Recap August 17, 2026:

NEPSE closed at 2,641.58, down 2.25 points (‑0.08%). The index has now closed within a 10-point band 2,641 to 2,651 in six of the last seven sessions. That is not consolidation with a bid underneath it; it is a market with nothing left to move it.

The breadth is the worst of the entire stretch. 71 advanced against 203 declined, 7 unchanged, 350 scripts traded. An A/D ratio of 0.35 worse than 10 August's 0.51, worse than 12 August's 0.70, and the weakest reading since 7 August's 0.32. Thursday's 202/122 reversal now looks like a single-session anomaly inside a tape that has spent a fortnight getting narrower.

The index is down 2.25 points. The market is down far more than that. A gap that wide between a flat headline and a 0.35 A/D means a handful of heavy counters are holding the number up while nearly three names fall for every one that rises.

And for the second session running, the turnover print is inflated by block activity. Headline turnover is Rs 5.53 arab which would be the highest of the month by a wide margin. But RSML alone accounted for Rs 31.53 crore across five blocks Rs 12.26 Cr, Rs 5.26 Cr, Rs 5.12 Cr, Rs 4.69 Cr and Rs 4.20 Cr, the largest printing at 11:26:05 AM. RSML closed +11.17% and was the day's top turnover name.

Friday it was ADBLB87 at Rs 70.88 crore on eight trades. Today it is RSML at Rs 31.53 crore in blocks. Two consecutive sessions where the headline turnover figure carries a large institutional print that has nothing to do with broad participation. The pattern is now established enough that the raw turnover number should not be read at face value without checking the block tape first.

Transactions did rise to 56,818, the highest count in over a week, up roughly 32% on Friday's 43,060 on 1.19 crore units. So participation genuinely improved. But it improved into a tape where 203 of 350 names fell.

Index Snapshot

Turnover: Rs 5.53 arab
Volume: 1.19 crore units
Transactions: 56,818
Scripts traded: 350
Advancers: 71
Decliners: 203
Unchanged: 7

Float underperformed NEPSE by 20bps, consistent with the breadth: the broader, non-promoter market did worse than the headline.

Sectoral Indices Performance

Only two sectors closed green, and both are single-name stories.

Manufacturing & Processing rose 1.30%, the best sector almost entirely on RSML's +11.17%, the same name that printed Rs 31.53 crore in blocks. The rest of the sector on the heatmap: SHIVM ‑0.21%, SOPL ‑0.11%, ECL ‑1.57%, SONA ‑0.62%, SYPNL +0.23%, HDL green. RSML is the sector.

Hydropower rose 0.45% on SOHL (+5.66%), BHCL (+8.22%), SGHL (+3.74%) and TAMOR (+2.63%) against KKHC ‑6.33%, GHL ‑2.61%, RIDI ‑1.71%, AKJCL ‑1.25%, LEC ‑1.17%, NHPC ‑0.75%. The heatmap is majority red inside a green sector index. Same distortion this report has flagged repeatedly: the hydro sub-index tells you about four names, not 111.

Finance was the worst at ‑1.14%, led down by CFCL ‑4.54% and GUFL ‑2.36%, with MFIL ‑1.45% and BFC ‑0.31%. CFCL has now fallen four consecutive sessions, it was Rs 22.48 crore of turnover at ‑1.22% on Wednesday, and it is still bleeding.

Banking at ‑0.50% with the large caps leading down: NIMB ‑2.58%, GBIME ‑1.54%, PRVU ‑1.71%, NICA ‑1.36%, NMB ‑1.15%. NBL was the exception at +2.45%. After a full week of positive bank earnings coverage: Kumari, Nepal SBI, Muktinath, Citizens, Prime, the sector has closed +0.39%, ‑0.14%, and now ‑0.50%. Earnings are not moving bank prices, and this is the third consecutive session confirming it.

Investment fell a third straight session at ‑0.59%: HATHY ‑3.60%, HIDCL ‑0.82%, NIFRA ‑0.44%, NRN ‑0.36%. Wednesday's Rs 42.71 crore surge into that sector is now fully unwound.

Market Breadth

A/D ratio 0.35. The series across this stretch: 0.32 → 0.51 → 0.99 → 0.70 → 1.66 → 0.67 → 0.35.

Technical scan: 4,729 signals, 1,136 bullish (24.02%) against 1,818 bearish (38.44%).

This breaks the one trend that had been holding. Bearish share had declined four consecutive sessions 41.80% → 40.41% → 38.76% → 37.14% and today it turned back up to 38.44%, while bullish share fell to 24.02%, the lowest reading of the series. Friday's report flagged that a red session pushing bearish back above 39% would kill the idea of a quiet base forming. It didn't quite get there, but it reversed, and the bull/bear gap widened from 11.7 points back to 14.4.

Winners & Losers

Top Gainers

Excluded: SAPIL at +15.00% (456.20), a new listing still circuiting daily on double-digit unit volume. Third consecutive limit-up on negligible turnover; price discovery in name only. MEPDL has been doing the same.

RSML's +11.17% needs the asterisk. Rs 31.53 crore came through five blocks, the largest Rs 12.26 crore. A stock that moves 11% while an institution accumulates Rs 31 crore in blocks is not the same event as a stock that moves 11% on broad buying. Whether the price holds when the block buyer stops is the whole question and this market has answered that question the same way six times in two weeks.

BHCL is the one name with a genuine two-day trend. +6.86% Friday on Rs 8.22 crore and 878 transactions, +8.22% today. Cumulatively +15.7% across two sessions, making it the only name on this board to hold and extend a gain since GHL and SKHL both failed and both of those failed on day two.

SOHL finally closed up. After six consecutive sessions without a gain during which its turnover collapsed from Rs 44.88 crore to Rs 10.70 crore, it rose 5.66% to 709.00 and was the day's highest-volume name. Worth watching whether that is a genuine base or the last unwind of a crowded position.

BJHL at +5.89% is notable given its mutual fund lock-in on 145,975 units expires Shrawan 26. The market front-ran that supply on 10 August (‑3.46%), unwound it on 11 August (+2.24%), and is now bidding it up into the expiry. That is not how a market prices known incoming supply.

Top Losers

KKHC is the reversal that matters. Friday's report singled it out as "the one name to follow", it had fallen Thursday when everything rose, then risen 10.09% Friday when everything fell, on Rs 17.99 crore and 798 transactions, closing at its high. The call was that holding above 340 would make it the first name in a week with a real trend.

It closed at 330.00, down 6.33%, and was among the day's highest-volume names on the way down. It failed the test in one session. That is now seven consecutive breakouts on this exchange that reversed within one or two sessions: Investment's sector surge, GHL, SKHL, ULHC's double circuit, CORBL, UHEWA, and now KKHC.

FMDBL: ‑6.63% after +6.96% Friday. A straight round trip. Its five-session sequence: ‑3.65%, ‑0.77%, ‑1.61%, +6.96%, ‑6.63%.

MLBSL has now fallen four of five sessions: limit-down at ‑14.91% on 11 August, then ‑5.18%, then ‑6.57% today to 1,195.00. Down roughly 26% from 1,610 in five sessions. The microfinance unwind flagged on 11 August is still running, Microfinance was again among the weaker sectors at ‑0.66%, with FMDBL, MLBSL, SMFBS, GBLBS and NICLBSL all red.

SKHL continues to unravel: +13.02% Thursday, ‑12.83% Friday, ‑4.13% today. It closed 834.10 against Thursday's 998.00 down 16.4% in two sessions from the spike.

Turnover & Volume Leaders

Most active by volume: SOHL (709.00, +5.66%), RSML (2,841.60, +11.17%), KKHC (330.00, ‑6.33%), RIDI (361.60, ‑1.71%), NBL (276.40, +2.45%), NIMB (188.90, ‑2.58%), GBIME (249.00, ‑1.54%), GHL (242.50, ‑2.61%), PRVU (183.80, ‑1.71%), NHPC (266.00, ‑0.75%).

Four commercial banks in the volume top ten: NBL, NIMB, GBIME, PRVU and only NBL closed higher. Volume arriving in banks that keep falling is distribution, not accumulation.

RIDI closed at 361.60, its lowest of this entire stretch. The sequence: 386.00 → 377.00 → 375.00 → 371.00 → 367.90 → 361.60. Six consecutive declines, with turnover down from Rs 33.68 crore on 11 August to a fraction of that. Combined with SOHL, this pair defined the tape for a week; SOHL bounced today, RIDI did not.

GHL is now down three sessions from its spike: +11.90% Thursday at 256.70, then ‑3.00% to 249.00, now ‑2.61% to 242.50. It has given back the entire move and trades below where it started.

Bulk/block activity: Rs 5.42 arab across 55,498 block transactions, average deal size Rs 97,730. Top five blocks all RSML, totalling Rs 31.53 crore Rs 12.26 Cr (11:26:05 AM), Rs 5.26 Cr, Rs 5.12 Cr, Rs 4.69 Cr, Rs 4.20 Cr. Top five by quantity: PRSF (150,000), GBIME (99,944), NSIF2 (77,950 / 69,317 / 64,268).

The week's block tape in sequence: SOHL/RIDI/UHEWA Rs 8.37 Cr → RADHI/NRN/AKJCL/KKHC/GBIME Rs 11.06 Cr → CFCL/SBI/UMHL/ADBL Rs 12.34 Cr → ADBLB87 Rs 50.68 Cr → RSML Rs 31.53 Cr. The last two sessions have seen block value in a single instrument exceed the entire prior three days of diversified block activity combined.

Previous Session Recap: Friday, 14 August

NEPSE closed at 2,643.83, down 7.37 points (‑0.27%), giving back 84% of Thursday's gain. Breadth 130 up / 193 down. Headline turnover Rs 4.28 arab, but ADBLB87, an ADBL debenture did Rs 70.88 crore on eight transactions, 16.6% of the market, through five identical 100,000-unit blocks. Equity turnover ex-debenture was Rs 3.57 arab, down 4.2%; transactions fell 6.0% to the week's low.

Every sector that led Thursday reversed. Non-Life Insurance went from 10 up / 4 down to 1 up / 14 down. KKHC rose 10.09% on Rs 17.99 crore, closing at its high, the only name trading against the herd two sessions running. SKHL, Thursday's top gainer at +13.02%, fell 12.83%.

Weekly context: the seven sessions from 7 to 17 August: 2,650.08 → 2,641.06 → 2,641.85 → 2,642.40 → 2,651.21 → 2,643.83 → 2,641.58. Net change: ‑8.50 points, or ‑0.32%, across seven sessions in a 22-point band. Breadth has been negative in six of those seven.

Top Stories in Nepal

• Nepal Electricity Authority profit falls 43%. The most consequential item on the list. NEA is the single counterparty for essentially every listed hydropower producer's PPA revenue, and hydropower has taken 42–55% of daily market turnover every session for two weeks. A 43% profit decline at the offtaker is a sector-level input, not a news item.

• Government moves to revive Udayapur Cement.

• "Nepal can move from 'Make in Nepal' to 'Made in Nepal' in 5–10 years" Saurabh Jyoti.

• Siddhartha Capital appointed share registrar for Forward Microfinance.

• Gas Sellers' Federation accuses government over pricing.

The NEA number deserves more attention than it will get. Every session this report has described money crowding into hydropower and producing nothing durable: GHL, SKHL, KKHC, ULHC all spiked and failed. A deteriorating offtaker is the fundamental case for why that money keeps failing to hold.

Corporate Actions & Events

Both dated lock-in expiries are now inside the next few sessions, and neither is being priced. BJHL rose 5.89% today into its own supply release. RNLI has drifted between ‑0.33% and +1.16% for five sessions with no directional positioning at all, this report has flagged it for five consecutive sessions and it remains the most under-watched dated event on the calendar.

What to Watch

A/D of 0.35 is the number that matters, not the 2.25-point index decline. Almost three declines for every advance, on the highest transaction count in over a week. Rising participation into falling breadth is distribution, more people selling into fewer bids. If it repeats tomorrow, the 2,633 low gives way.

Levels: the 2,629–2,633 zone has now held four times, and today's low was inside it again. That is either a genuine floor or a level being tested to exhaustion, four tests without a strong bounce usually resolves downward. Above, 2,656.54 remains the near ceiling and 2,676.40 the level that has to break to end the downtrend, now 35 points away and further than it was a week ago.

KKHC failing was the seventh consecutive failed breakout. Friday's call on it was wrong within one session, and that is now the reliable pattern rather than the exception: nothing on this exchange has held a gain for three sessions since before 7 August. BHCL, up 15.7% across two sessions, is the only current candidate, watch it specifically tomorrow. If it fails too, fade-every-breakout is the only working strategy on this tape.

Read the block tape before the turnover print, every session. Two consecutive days of single-instrument blocks ADBLB87 Rs 70.88 crore, RSML Rs 31.53 crore inflating the headline. Rs 5.53 arab looks like a participation surge and is substantially one institution accumulating RSML. The number worth tracking is turnover excluding the top block cluster, and it has not meaningfully grown all week.

NEA's 43% profit decline against hydropower's 42–55% turnover share. This is the structural question the daily tape keeps gesturing at. Money has poured into hydro for two weeks and every name that spiked has failed. If the offtaker's finances are deteriorating, the sector's earnings trajectory is the reason those spikes keep failing, and no amount of rotation within hydro fixes it.

BJHL into its own lock-in expiry. Up 5.89% with 145,975 mutual fund units unlocking within days. Either the market knows something about who is holding or this is a straightforward mispricing that resolves on expiry.