Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) began the trading week on a bearish note, with the benchmark index declining by 12.53 points to close at 2,649.11 on Sunday.
This follows a 12.6-point drop in the previous session on Thursday, when the index settled at 2,661.64.
Market activity reflected a cautious sentiment as share prices of 164 companies declined during the session, while 82 registered gains. Total turnover also contracted to Rs 10.20 billion compared to Rs 11.65 billion in the previous session. A total of 24.01 million units of securities changed hands through 88,955 transactions on Sunday.
Radhi Bidyut Company Ltd posted the highest turnover of the session with Rs 661.07 million worth of shares traded. Next were Ngadi Group Power Ltd and Universal Power Company Ltd with turnovers of Rs 606.86 million and Rs 546.79 million, respectively.
Sub-indices of four trading groups posted gains, while nine ended in the negative territory. The Hotels and Tourism sub-index posted the highest gain of 6.24%. The Finance sub-index, on the other hand, suffered the steepest decline of 3.38%.
