Markets Today

The 30-Second Read

• NEPSE closed 2,538.11, up 15.44 (+0.61%) second consecutive gain, +24.69 points off Monday's coverage low of 2,513.42.

• Breadth was the best of the entire coverage: 193 advancing, 75 declining, A/D 2.57. For the first time in nineteen sessions, an above-parity A/D reading held two days in a row. That pattern had failed five times out of five before today.

• The Nepal Insurance Authority put a number on the flood: Rs 25.87 billion in preliminary claims across 583 insured parties. Non-Life was the only meaningful sector in the red (−0.07%) and inside it, the four largest listed exposures all fell while the five smallest all rose. The tape sorted the sector by claim size. See the table below; this is the most precise piece of price discovery in the dataset.

• A single Rs 4.95 crore block printed in SAHAS at 2:23 PM, 71,900 shares in one cross. That is the first block above Rs 2 crore since the ADBLB87 debenture placements, and it's the marker we've been waiting on. Average deal size jumped to Rs 74,087 from Rs 59,442, the first meaningful reversal in an eight-session slide.

• But turnover was Rs 2.94 arab, the second-lowest of the coverage. Best breadth ever recorded here, on nearly the least money. That is the tension in today's session.

The index number is the least interesting thing that happened.

NEPSE added 15.44 points to close at 2,538.11, a 0.61% gain. Turnover was Rs 2.94 arab on 72.68 lakh shares and 39,673 transactions across 354 scrips.

The real event was breadth. 193 advancers against 75 decliners and 14 unchanged gives an A/D ratio of 2.57, the highest reading in nineteen sessions of coverage, beating yesterday's 2.15. More importantly, it is the first time in the entire dataset that an above-parity A/D has survived into a second session. Every prior one: 10 Aug (0.99), 12 Aug (1.66), 18 Aug (1.01), 30 Aug (1.24), 1 Sep (2.15) reversed the next day. That rule broke today.

Eleven of thirteen sector indices closed green. Hydropower led at +0.95%, Finance +0.91%, Banking +0.73%. Only Non-Life Insurance (−0.07%) and Mutual Fund (−0.09%) finished red, and both are explainable rather than random, Non-Life on the claims estimate, Mutual Fund on heavy unit redemption volume (SFEF and SEF were the two largest quantity prints of the day, 77,517 and 29,500 units).

The loser table itself is evidence. The worst decline in the top-ten losers was KBSH at −3.65%. In every prior session of this coverage the loser table has run to −6%, −9%, or a limit-down. A shallow loser table alongside a 2.57 A/D says selling pressure genuinely stepped back not that buying got aggressive.

And that is the caveat. Turnover of Rs 2.94 arab is the second-lowest of the coverage, barely above Monday's Rs 2.91 arab record low and 38% below the 26 August high of Rs 4.77 arab. Broad participation, minimal money. Two sessions of that is a relief rally in a thin tape, not a re-rating. It becomes something else only when the money shows up.

• Turnover: Rs 2.94 arab

• Volume: 72.68 lakh units

• Transactions: 39,673

• Scrips traded: 354

Sectoral Indices Performance

The flood gets a price tag: Rs 25.87 billion — and the tape sorted insurers by it

NEPSE Daily Recap · Wednesday, 2 September 2026 · Close 3:00 PM

The 30-Second Read

• NEPSE closed 2,538.11, up 15.44 (+0.61%) — second consecutive gain, +24.69 points off Monday's coverage low of 2,513.42.

• Breadth was the best of the entire coverage: 193 advancing, 75 declining, A/D 2.57. For the first time in nineteen sessions, an above-parity A/D reading held two days in a row. That pattern had failed five times out of five before today.

• The Nepal Insurance Authority put a number on the flood: Rs 25.87 billion in preliminary claims across 583 insured parties. Non-Life was the only meaningful sector in the red (−0.07%) — and inside it, the four largest listed exposures all fell while the five smallest all rose. The tape sorted the sector by claim size. See the table below; this is the most precise piece of price discovery in the dataset.

• A single Rs 4.95 crore block printed in SAHAS at 2:23 PM — 71,900 shares in one cross. That is the first block above Rs 2 crore since the ADBLB87 debenture placements, and it's the marker we've been waiting on. Average deal size jumped to Rs 74,087 from Rs 59,442, the first meaningful reversal in an eight-session slide.

• But turnover was Rs 2.94 arab — the second-lowest of the coverage. Best breadth ever recorded here, on nearly the least money. That is the tension in today's session.

Markets Today

The index number is the least interesting thing that happened.

NEPSE added 15.44 points to close at 2,538.11, a 0.61% gain. Turnover was Rs 2.94 arab on 72.68 lakh shares and 39,673 transactions across 354 scrips.

The real event was breadth. 193 advancers against 75 decliners and 14 unchanged gives an A/D ratio of 2.57 — the highest reading in nineteen sessions of coverage, beating yesterday's 2.15. More importantly, it is the first time in the entire dataset that an above-parity A/D has survived into a second session. Every prior one — 10 Aug (0.99), 12 Aug (1.66), 18 Aug (1.01), 30 Aug (1.24), 1 Sep (2.15) — reversed the next day. That rule broke today.

Eleven of thirteen sector indices closed green. Hydropower led at +0.95%, Finance +0.91%, Banking +0.73%. Only Non-Life Insurance (−0.07%) and Mutual Fund (−0.09%) finished red, and both are explainable rather than random — Non-Life on the claims estimate, Mutual Fund on heavy unit redemption volume (SFEF and SEF were the two largest quantity prints of the day, 77,517 and 29,500 units).

The loser table itself is evidence. The worst decline in the top-ten losers was KBSH at −3.65%. In every prior session of this coverage the loser table has run to −6%, −9%, or a limit-down. A shallow loser table alongside a 2.57 A/D says selling pressure genuinely stepped back — not that buying got aggressive.

And that is the caveat. Turnover of Rs 2.94 arab is the second-lowest of the coverage, barely above Monday's Rs 2.91 arab record low and 38% below the 26 August high of Rs 4.77 arab. Broad participation, minimal money. Two sessions of that is a relief rally in a thin tape, not a re-rating. It becomes something else only when the money shows up.

Index Snapshot

Turnover Rs 2.94 arab · Volume 72.68 lakh units · Transactions 39,673 · Scrips traded 354

Sectoral Indices Performance

11 of 13 sub-indices advanced, 2 declined. Float (174.19, +0.71%) is a broad index, not a sub-index and is carried in the Index Snapshot instead.

Per-sector advance/decline counts were not exposed in the terminal today so sector breadth is inferred from the heat-map tile colouring rather than reported as hard numbers.

Dispersion note: Microfinance closed +0.43% at the index level while producing two of the top ten gainers (ULBSL +11.87%, ANLB +10.10%) and four of the top ten losers (MLBS −3.28%, JSLBB −2.42%, GMFBS −1.80%, NMBMF −1.68%). The sector index is hiding the widest internal spread on the board. Anyone holding a single microfinance name got almost no information from the sector print.

Market Breadth

Running A/D series (7 Aug → 2 Sep): 0.32 → 0.51 → 0.99 → 0.70 → 1.66 → 0.67 → 0.35 → 0.32 → 0.79 → 1.01 → 0.36 → 0.21 → 0.42 → 0.09 → 1.24 → 0.08 → 2.15 → 2.57

New coverage record: 2.57. Worst remains 0.08 (31 Aug). The 0.08 → 2.15 → 2.57 sequence over three sessions is the sharpest breadth reversal in the dataset, and the first back-to-back above-parity pair.

Technical scan

The Live Indicator Scan at 2:57 PM read 3,297 total signals: 647 bullish (19.62%) and 1,264 bearish (38.34%).

Bullish percentage rose off Monday's record low of 18.98% — but only to 19.62%, still the second-lowest reading of the coverage and far under the 24–25% band the scan held in early August. Bearish signals outnumber bullish 1.95 to 1. So the divergence has not closed: breadth is at a record high while the indicator base is near a record low.

Running bullish %: 24.86 → 25.24 → 24.92 → 25.45 → 22.27 → 22.66 → 21.41 → 20.27 → 19.71 → 20.09 → 18.98 → 19.62

This is where we were wrong yesterday. The scan had diverged from strong breadth on 20 Aug, 27 Aug and 1 Sep, and won inside a single session each time, a 3-for-3 record that made it the most reliable leading indicator in this dataset. Monday's record-low 18.98% against a 2.15 A/D pointed to a reversal down on Tuesday. The market went up 15.44 points with even better breadth. The call failed. The scan is now 3-for-4. One miss doesn't kill an indicator but it does mean the reading gets weighted, not obeyed.

Winners & Losers

Top Gainers

Signal quality: only CFCL, RHPL and GBIME appear in either activity table, so those three moves are backed by real volume. ULBSL, MMKJL, ANLB, MKHC, MKJC, SPL and BGWT appear in neither the volume nor the turnover top ten at prices of Rs 2,790 and Rs 5,350, ULBSL and ANLB in particular can post double-digit percentage moves on very few units. Treat them as thin prints, not sector signals.

No debentures appeared in either table today, the first clean pair of tables in several sessions. Nothing needed excluding.

Top Losers

The shallowest loser table of the coverage. Worst name down 3.65%; nothing near a circuit.

SAPIL is now down a third consecutive session — 1,394.80 peak → 1,253 → 1,230.00, a −11.8% drawdown from the top after eleven straight limit-ups took it +304% from its 345 listing. The unwind is orderly so far, which is unusual for a name that ran that hard.

Turnover & Volume Leaders

Most Active by Turnover

Most Active by Volume

RHPL (178.80, +5.99%)
GBIME (249.90, +4.13%)
TAMOR (504.00, +1.82%)
RIDI (352.00, +1.24%)
SOHL (663.00, +0.61%)
AKJCL (344.30, +0.50%)
SHIVM (658.00, +0.61%)
SMHL (538.00, +2.09%)
CFCL (635.00, +9.11%)
CHCL (377.00, +1.34%)

Six of the ten most-traded names by turnover are hydropower. Money is going back into the sector that took the flood damage: RHPL and CHCL, both explicitly named by NEA as damaged, were the most-traded and tenth-most-traded by volume respectively, both green.

Block tape

Bulk transaction panel timestamped 2:59 PM, a pre-close snapshot. The 3:00 PM terminal reading is the close. Block figures below are one minute short of final.

Top 5 by amount: SAHAS Rs 4.95 Cr (56.53%), SOHL Rs 1.26 Cr (14.38%), RADHI Rs 1.01 Cr (11.55%),S AHAS Rs 81.39 L (9.29%), NABBC Rs 72.20 L (8.24%); Combined Rs 8.76 crore.

Top 5 by quantity: SFEF 77,517, SAHAS 71,900, RHPL 41,692, SEF 29,500, SFEF 29,492.

This is the signal we flagged as the one to watch. The running series of largest daily blocks had collapsed: ADBLB87 Rs 10.15 Cr → RSML Rs 5.44 Cr → SBI Rs 4.03 Cr → TAMOR Rs 95.30 L → SOHL Rs 76.06 L, two consecutive sessions with nothing above Rs 1 crore. We said the marker was the first block above Rs 2 crore. Today it printed at Rs 4.95 crore.

Cross-check the arithmetic: 71,900 shares × Rs 688.30 = Rs 4.949 crore. The Rs 4.95 Cr amount block and the 71,900 quantity block are the same trade, a single negotiated cross of 71,900 SAHAS shares, not an accumulation of smaller lots. And SAHAS closed +0.48%. Size changed hands with almost no price impact which is what a genuine institutional placement looks like rather than aggressive buying.

Average deal size confirms it: Rs 74,087, up 24.6% and the first increase after an eight-session slide from Rs 98,483 down to Rs 53,605.

Turnover integrity check: SAHAS's two blocks total Rs 5.76 crore, or 1.96% of the day's Rs 2.94 arab. Unlike the ADBLB87 and RSML sessions, the headline turnover figure is not distorted today, no single-instrument placement is inflating it. Rs 2.94 arab is real equity turnover, and it is genuinely near the coverage low. That makes the number worse news, not better.

One caveat on the block panel: at Rs 2.64 arab against Rs 2.94 arab of market turnover, this feed is capturing roughly 90% of all trading, not an isolated block book. Read "average deal size" as an average ticket across the tape, which is why it works as a participation gauge.

Previous Session Recap

Monday, 1 September, NEPSE rose 9.24 points to 2,522.66 on Rs 2.91 arab, the lowest turnover of the coverage with an A/D of 2.15 that was, at the time, a record. The technical scan simultaneously hit a record-low 18.98% bullish. RIDI broke a streak of fourteen declines in seventeen sessions, closing at 347.70. The Manufacturing rotation (GCIL/PCIL/SHIVM/SONA/SYPNL) failed on day three becoming the thirteenth failed rotation of the coverage. UHEWA became the first name subject to the new SEBON promoter pre-disclosure rule.

Coverage index series (7 Aug → 2 Sep, 19 sessions): 2,650.08 → 2,641.06 → 2,641.85 → 2,642.40 → 2,651.21 → 2,643.83 → 2,641.82 → 2,622.48 → 2,622.22 → 2,629.40 → 2,618.72 → 2,599.58 → 2,594.27 → 2,558.35 → 2,557.31 → 2,513.42 → 2,522.66 → 2,538.11

Net across the coverage: −111.97 points, −4.22%. That is an improvement from −4.81% at Monday's close. The market has clawed back 24.69 points, or 22% of the total drawdown, in two sessions.

Signal Scorecard: What resolved today

The most useful thing this report can do is mark its own calls. Here is where the open positions stood at 3:00 PM.

Correction to carried data. The running notes state RHPL is "down ~44.6% from its 241.40 pre-flood level." That does not reconcile. At today's 178.80 close, RHPL is −25.93% from 241.40; backing out today's +5.99% puts Monday's close at ~168.69, or −30.1%. The −44.6% figure appears to be an error carried forward and is retired here. The correct pre-flood drawdown is −25.9%. CHCL at 377.00 (+1.34%) should be re-verified against its own pre-flood reference on the next capture.

Top Stories in Nepal

1. The flood finally has a number and it lands on the insurers

The Nepal Insurance Authority published preliminary claims data as of Bhadra 15: 583 insured parties affected, with estimated claims exceeding Rs 25.87 billion from the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli floods. Final figures await damage assessment and settlement.

Company-wise, with today's close alongside:

Read that column. Every listed insurer with more than Rs 1 billion of exposure closed red. Every listed insurer with less than Rs 700 million closed green. On a day when 193 of 282 names advanced and the index rose 0.61%, the Non-Life sector sorted itself by claim size with no exceptions among the names we can see.

That is the single most precise piece of price discovery in nineteen sessions of coverage. This market has spent a month failing to price earnings, ignoring double-digit profit growth at three banks and a 97% jump in finance-sector Q4 profits. Handed a specific liability with a specific number attached to a specific balance sheet, it priced it correctly and immediately.

Why it matters: it establishes that the flood is now a quantified, tradeable liability rather than an open-ended fear and it tells you what kind of information this tape actually responds to.

The reinsurance layer is the unresolved half. Himalayan Reinsurance reported a Rs 2.33 billion FY2082/83 loss with its catastrophe reserve depleted 27% to Rs 144.4 million. Against Rs 25.87 billion of gross primary claims, that reserve is 0.56% of the number roughly 1/179th. Whatever the retrocession and treaty structure absorbs, HRL's own cushion is not a material part of it. HRL closed +0.58%.

For scale: Rs 25.87 billion is 88% of an entire day's NEPSE turnover at today's Rs 2.94 arab.

2. Trishuli Jal Vidyut discloses total destruction of Upper Trishuli-3 'B'

Trishuli Jal Vidyut Company (TVCL) formally notified SEBON, NEPSE and CDSC that the 37 MW Upper Trishuli-3 'B' project under construction at Sirupani, Kispang-5, Nuwakot was completely damaged by the Bhadra 10 Bhotekoshi flood. The company states project structures are entirely destroyed and the condition of most employees at the site remains unknown. No financial loss quantum has been given.

Why it matters: this is a listed company disclosing the total loss of an under-construction asset with no damage figure attached. It is step one of the template we identified with Myagdi Hydropower: damage → force majeure → unquantified insurance claim → debt servicing risk → downgrade. MHL took ten days to get from disclosure to an [ICRANP-IR] B@ downgrade on negative watch. Watch for a TVCL rating action and for the insurance claim to appear in a revised NIA tally, the current Rs 25.87 billion is dated Bhadra 15 and this disclosure is later.

3. Power exports halved: the revenue line not just the asset line

Twelve hydropower projects have suspended generation. Nepal's average electricity export has fallen from roughly 1,000 MW to about 650 MW. Exports to Bangladesh have stopped entirely: the 22.1 MW Chilime and 24 MW Trishuli projects, the two cleared for Bangladesh sales, have both been offline for about a week. Sanjen, Upper Sanjen and Salasungi are running in isolated mode, serving local demand only because transmission infrastructure is damaged.

Separately, India's Central Electricity Authority has not renewed export permits for Upper Chameliya (38.80 MW, expired 31 June), Seti River (24.25 MW) and Upper Tadi (10.70 MW) both expired 31 July stranding 73.75 MW of otherwise saleable capacity. A further 20 MW of Bangladesh exports is blocked on Indian transmission-capacity grounds.

Context on what's at stake: in FY2082/83 Nepal exported roughly NPR 29.32 billion of electricity and imported NPR 10.23 billion, a net trade surplus of about NPR 19.97 billion. Bangladesh pays in US dollars.

Why it matters: the market has been treating the flood as balance-sheet damage to individual hydro names. This is the cash-flow channel. NEA is the offtaker on essentially every listed hydro PPA, it has already reported a 43% profit decline and banks committed roughly Rs 115 billion to Tila-1 and Tila-2 within a single week. A 35% cut to export volume in dollar-earning capacity flows to NEA before it flows to anyone else.

4. Supply chain: the inflation channel opens

Rasuwagadhi remains closed, with 176 containers stranded at Kerung. Freight has gone from NPR 175,000–200,000 to NPR 300,000–400,000 per container close to a doubling. Roughly 40 km of the 56 km Bidur–Rasuwagadhi road is completely destroyed. Korala routing takes 6–10 days; sea routing takes 55–65 days.

Kathmandu consumes 35,000–37,000 LPG cylinders daily, now all moving on longer routes. Traders estimate over NPR 2 billion of goods damaged outright. The Nepal Trans-Himalayan Border Commerce Association warns festival-goods prices could rise 10–20%. On the Prithvi Highway, landslides around Krishnabhir have pushed a three-hour run to nearly five. Rasuwa Customs collected around NPR 13.64 billion last fiscal year; that revenue line is now at risk.

Why it matters: three transmission paths into listed equities. Trading and consumer names (BBC, STC, Bhat-Bhateni) face input costs and inventory timing into the peak festival quarter. Inflation constrains NRB, which is already withdrawing Rs 85 billion from BFIs. Customs revenue shortfalls tighten fiscal room. Note that Trading closed +0.72% today and BBC +0.77% this is not priced.

5. Global IME Bank: 10% dividend, and the market noticed

GBIME's 473rd board meeting on Bhadra 17 proposed a 10% dividend for FY2082/83 4% bonus shares and 6% cash, tax inclusive, pending NRB approval and the 20th AGM. The stock closed 249.90, +4.13%, and was the second-most-traded name by volume.

Why it matters: this is the cleanest test yet of an open question. Across the coverage, reported earnings moved nothing, three banks with double-digit profit growth and a 97% finance-sector Q4 profit jump were all ignored. A dividend announcement produced a 4.13% move on heavy volume the same day. For a market where retail dominates, cash in hand is the signal; accrual earnings are not. Expect other banks to be watched for the same catalyst and expect the reaction to be front-loaded into announcement day.

6. Regulatory and pipeline

ICRA Nepal reaffirmed Bottlers Nepal (Terai) at [ICRANP] A1 short-term but retained "Watch with Negative Implications" over the parent's NPR 12.8 billion tax dispute (1 Sep). Divine Healthcare appointed Muktinath Capital as IPO issue manager for a 20%-of-paid-up-capital offering. ICFC Finance proposed a 10.5263% cash dividend, Rs 124.58 million, pending NRB and AGM.

Corporate Actions & Events

What to Watch

1. 2,550 is 11.89 points away, 0.47%. The first broken floor overhead. Take it and the zone from 2,550 to 2,594 has no intervening structure, which is why a third up-day could be disproportionately large. Fail it and 2,522.66 becomes the immediate test.

2. Does the A/D hold above 1.00 for a third session? It has never happened in this dataset. Two consecutive above-parity readings already broke the standing rule. A third confirms a regime change; a sub-1.00 print says today was mean reversion inside a downtrend. This is the single highest-information number on Thursday's screen.

3. Turnover must clear Rs 3.50 arab. Two sessions of record-low money (Rs 2.91, Rs 2.94 arab) behind record-high breadth is not a base. Below Rs 3.00 arab a third time, treat the rally as retail churn regardless of what the index does.

4. A second block above Rs 2 crore. One Rs 4.95 crore SAHAS cross is a trade; two in consecutive sessions is a return of institutional size. Also watch average deal size, it must stay above Rs 70,000. A drop back toward Rs 60,000 makes today's print a one-off placement rather than a trend.

5. Non-Life: does the sort survive? UAIL (Rs 4.97 bn), SGIC (Rs 2.10 bn), SPIL (Rs 1.88 bn) and SICL (Rs 1.87 bn) all need to be watched against HEI (+2.80% today on Rs 648 mn exposure). If exposure-ranked selling continues a second day, the sector is being repriced on fundamentals; if it reverses uniformly, today was a one-session reaction. Watch also for a revised NIA tally above Rs 25.87 billion, the current figure predates the TVCL disclosure.

6. GBIME's +4.13% has to hold two sessions. Thirteen rotations have failed in this coverage; a dividend-driven move is only a template if it survives day two. If it holds, the next bank board meeting becomes a tradeable event and the sequence is worth positioning ahead of.

7. Hydropower is on day two. The sector led at +0.95% with six of the ten turnover leaders. Thursday is day three, the level that has broken fourteen consecutive rotations since before 7 August. RHPL, TAMOR, SOHL and SMHL are the names carrying it. Nothing in this market has held three days; that is the streak to watch break.

8. TVCL rating action. Myagdi Hydropower went from landslide to an ICRA downgrade with explicit default-risk language in roughly ten days. TVCL disclosed today. If the template repeats, expect a rating watch inside two weeks and note ICRA has been active in both directions, having cleared Bhat-Bhateni while keeping Bottlers Nepal (Terai) on watch.

Skip this if you know it. Included because the report leans on a few terms heavily.

• A/D ratio: advancers divided by decliners. Above 1.00 means more stocks rose than fell. It measures participation, which can disagree with the index when a few large names dominate.

• Block / bulk transaction: a single large negotiated trade. Big blocks with little price movement usually mean size changing hands by agreement, not a rush to buy.

• Average deal size: total value divided by number of trades. A proxy for who is trading: rising means larger tickets (institutional), falling means retail-sized orders.

• Breadth vs turnover divergence: many stocks rising on little money. Common at the end of declines, but not sufficient on its own to mark a bottom.

• Force majeure: a contract clause suspending obligations after an event outside a party's control. Filed with NEA, it protects a project from PPA penalties but does not repair the balance sheet.

• Negative watch (ICRA): a rating agency signalling a probable downgrade within a defined window. It is a warning, not the action itself.

• Lock-in expiry: the date on which previously restricted shares become sellable. Adds supply.

• Pre-close snapshot: a terminal reading taken before 3:00 PM. NEPSE's closing cross can change the picture; anything timestamped 2:57 or 2:59 PM is not the close.