Share market terms in Nepali and English: the NEPSE glossary, with real examples

The share market (शेयर बजार) is where people buy and sell part-ownership of companies, called shares, and other securities. In Nepal it is one exchange, NEPSE, where 305 companies were listed in mid-September 2026 and 81,23,973 demat accounts were open on 3 November 2026. You trade through one of 90 licensed brokers, your shares sit in an account at CDSC, and SEBON regulates them all.

Below are 211 share market terms in eleven groups, then 43 short forms, each with the Nepali, a plain meaning, a real NEPSE number where one helps, and for 100 of them a link to the guide that goes deeper.

Where the Nepali comes from. 70 terms are as the Securities Act 2063, SEBON's own glossary, NEPSE's trading rules, NRB or CDSC write them. The rest are the press's words or, where no source has one, the English in Devanagari (टीएमएस, स्टप लस). Official texts spell शेयर, news often सेयर; SEBON writes बोनश and डिवेञ्चर, news बोनस and डिबेन्चर.

• Market 23 · accounts 17 · orders and prices 34 · issues 24
• Book closure and dividends 16 · ratios 16 · banks 13 · charts 17
• Funds 15 · tax and charges 19 · slang 17 · abbreviations 43

NEPSE is the Nepal Stock Exchange Limited (नेपाल स्टक एक्सचेन्ज लिमिटेड, नेप्से), the country's stock exchange. Its letterhead reads "An Undertaking of Government of Nepal" (नेपाल सरकारको स्वामित्व भएको). It runs the trading system, sets the trading rules with SEBON's approval, publishes prices, indices and the floorsheet, and lists companies. "NEPSE" also means its index, as in "NEPSE fell 5 points".

It does not hold your shares (CDSC does) or take your order (a broker does). Trading has been online since NEPSE's online trading system, NOTS, went live on 6 November 2018. It runs Monday to Friday: the pre-open 10:30 to 10:45, continuous trading 11:00 to 15:00.

The NEPSE index (नेप्से परिसूचक) is one number for the price of every listed share together, weighted by market value, so the biggest companies, many of them banks, move it most. It was set at 100 on 30 Magh 2050 (12 February 1994); it closed October 2026 at 2,690.15, and its record close is 3,198.60, on 18 August 2021; the end-of-October close was 16% below it.

A point (अंक) is one unit of the index. On 30 October 2026 NEPSE closed at 2,690.15, 5.45 points below the previous close of 2,695.60: a change of −0.20%. At that level one point is 0.037% of the index, so "NEPSE up 27 points" means about 1%. A point says nothing about any one share: on a day the index rises, many shares fall.

NEPSE also publishes a Sensitive Index (group A companies only), a Float Index (meant to count only shares that trade, not promoters'; how it counts them has been questioned), a Sensitive Float Index, and 13 sector sub-indices, from banking and hydropower to life insurance and microfinance.

LTP (last traded price, अन्तिम कारोबार मूल्य) is the price of the most recent trade in a share: the number every app shows as its price. It changes with each trade while the market is open; the last LTP of the day is the closing price (बन्द मूल्य). NEPSE returned to that rule on 23 September 2025, after six months in 2025 of using the weighted average of the last 15 minutes' trades.

Each day has four prices, written OHLC: open, high, low, close. The picture draws 30 October 2026 for the NEPSE index as one candle. For a share it works the same way, in rupees instead of points.

• Previous close vs open: the change you see in apps (−5.45) is from the previous close, 2,695.60. From its own open, 2,693.55, the index lost 3.40 points.
• Range and turnover: high minus low, 31.41 points; Rs 8.89 billion traded, the most since April, Onlinekhabar reported.

The floorsheet (फ्लोरसिट) is NEPSE's list of every trade in a day. Each row is one trade: a contract number, the share's symbol, the buying broker's number, the selling broker's number, the kitta, the rate and the amount. The name is from the days of a trading floor; trading has been on screens since 2018.

Broker analysis adds up the floorsheet by broker to see who has been buying a share. Two cautions: a broker number is a firm with thousands of clients, so heavy buying through one may be many small buyers; and SEBON told NEPSE in 2078 BS to publish broker numbers only after trading ends, Nepal Live reported.

A circuit breaker (सर्किट ब्रेकर) stops the whole market when the NEPSE index moves too far, too fast; a price band (उतारचढाव सीमा) limits one share. "Stock market halt" in Nepali news means the first: कारोबार रोकियो. The rules below are from NEPSE's own amendment, धितोपत्र कारोबार सञ्चालन (चौथो संशोधन) विनियमावली, २०८२, approved by SEBON and in force from 20 April 2026 (2083/01/07).

• Measured from what? The index's move from its level at 11:00, not the previous close. A share's 15% from the price set in its pre-open session (प्रारम्भिक कारोबार सत्र), itself within 5% of the previous close; most news says from the previous close. Your TMS shows each share's limits for the day.
• A real halt: on 9 March 2026, after the general election, the index jumped 6.0% (about 163 points) through all three old tiers: about 70 seconds of trading, a 20-minute halt, 20 seconds, a 40-minute halt, 25 seconds, closed. Turnover was Rs 55.59 crore (ShareSansar). The other way: −6.0% on 18 September 2025, the first session after the September 2025 closure.
• A pre-open gap: on 15 September 2026 the index opened 86.06 points (3.3%) up, inside the 5% pre-open limit.
• Book-closure day: some sites say the band does not apply on the day a share's price is adjusted. We found no NEPSE rule saying so.

An IPO share does not start at the ordinary limits. After listing, its first trade must fall inside an opening range NEPSE sets. Since February 2026 that range runs up to three times the face value, Rs 100 to Rs 300 for a Rs 100 share; where the net worth per share is below face value, from the net worth instead. Before, it was three times the net worth per share. Trading starts a day or two after listing, once the company signs NEPSE's agreement.

After that the ordinary daily limit applies, so a new share can climb for many sessions. Reliance Spinning Mills sold to the public at Rs 820.80 through book building, opened at Rs 300 in February 2026 and rose 12 sessions in a row to Rs 893.30, the Kathmandu Post reported. At the 10% limit then, that needed at least 12 sessions; at 15% it would need 8.

A bull market is a rising market and a bear market a falling one. SEBON's own Nepali for them is उन्नतोन्मुख बजार and अधोन्मुख बजार; news writes बुल मार्केट and बियर मार्केट, and speech तेजी and मन्दी. A "bull" is someone who expects rises, a "bear" falls. Onlinekhabar's rule of thumb: 20% up from the last low, or two months of rises, is a bull market; 20% down from the last high a bear.

NEPSE's month-end closes show both. From 1,201.58 in May 2020, in the Covid year, the index rose 156% to 3,079.83 at the end of July 2021, its highest month-end. Then it fell 40% to 1,849.79 by May 2023.

IPO stands for initial public offering: in Nepali, प्रारम्भिक सार्वजनिक निष्काशन (आईपीओ). It is a company's first sale of its shares to the public, after which they are listed on NEPSE. You apply in MeroShare for at least 10 kitta, usually at Rs 100 each, and the money stays blocked in your bank until allotment. An FPO (further public offering, थप सार्वजनिक निष्काशन) is a later sale by a company already listed.

An example. In Sanigad Hydro's IPO (June 2026), 27,27,515 valid applications came in; the shares went by lottery, 10 kitta each, to 4,67,400 of them, 17%. Everyone else had the money unblocked. "IPO allotment" (बाँडफाँट) means that share-out.

The market's bodies and firms, with the Nepali the Securities Act and SEBON use. Check any firm on SEBON's lists before giving it money.

Four accounts make an investor: a bank account, a demat account, MeroShare and a broker account with TMS. The demat guide opens them in order.

A trade's journey from order to demat account, labelled with its words; the table defines them.

The words of new shares. Right and bonus shares change the price on book closure; the examples are real adjustments NEPSE made in 2026, worked in the dividend calculator.

The yearly round of a company's meeting and its payouts. The cut-off is one date, the book closure: hold the share at the close of the last trading day before it. The book closure guide works real dates.

The ratios worked on one made-up bank, so each can be checked: net profit Rs 2 arba, 10 crore shares, equity Rs 20 arba, assets Rs 250 arba, price Rs 400. Real companies are worked in the EPS, P/E and book value guide.

Banks are among NEPSE's biggest companies, so their words come up in every results season. The Nepali here is NRB's, from its monetary policy, where it has one.

Chart words. Most are English in Devanagari in Nepali writing; the descriptive Nepali in brackets appears in some explainers. Each is worked on real NEPSE prices in the technical analysis guide.

The words of funds, with the Act's own names for them. The examples are from the 14 open-ended funds tracked in the SIP guide; a fund named here is an example of a term, not a recommendation.

What a trade costs and when it settles, all from the same rates as the share calculator. Buying 100 shares at Rs 500 costs Rs 50,212.50: Rs 50,000 plus Rs 180 commission, Rs 7.50 SEBON fee and Rs 25 DP charge. Selling them at Rs 550 after more than a year brings back Rs 54,613.77 after Rs 171.48 of tax; within a year, Rs 54,556.61 after Rs 228.64.

The words of chat groups and broker offices: behaviour, not rules. Several name what SEBON treats as manipulation.

The short forms Nepali market pages use, with their full forms and Nepali. Most are defined in the tables above.

• Bonus and right: a bonus is free; a right must be paid for. Both lower the price on book closure; a cash dividend does not.
• Demat, MeroShare and TMS: the account that holds shares; CDSC's window onto it; the broker's screen for trading.
• CRN: SEBON's C-ASBA Registration Number, not a "customer reference number". BOID is the demat number, not the bank's.
• NAV and price: an open-ended fund deals at NAV; a closed-ended fund's units trade on NEPSE at whatever buyers pay, sometimes below NAV.
• WACC: in finance, a company's weighted average cost of capital; in MeroShare, your own average cost per share.