Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index opened the new trading week on a negative note, with the benchmark index posting a marginal decline of 1.03 points to close trading at 2,730.91 points on Monday.
Although the index moved into positive territory right after trading began, it soon fell back into the red and hit an intraday low of 2,722.72 points. A late buying helped erase some losses.
Unit prices of 132 scrips declined during the session, while 119 advanced and 18 remained unchanged. Total turnover fell to Rs 2.45 billion, the lowest since October 26 last year, when the total turnover had stood at Rs 2.36 billion. A total of 5.82 million units were traded through 43,309 transactions during the session.
Total turnover has failed to surpass Rs 10 billion since April 16, when securities worth Rs 10.28 billion were traded on the bourse.
Among individual stocks, Ingwa Hydropower Ltd logged the biggest gain of 8.42%, while Nifra Urja Rinparta 85/86 suffered the biggest loss of 5.26%. Sahas Urja Ltd topped the turnover chart with Rs 84.38 million worth of shares traded. Next were Reliance Spinning Mills Ltd and SY Panel (Nepal) Ltd with turnovers of Rs 73.48 million and Rs 71.31 million, respectively.
Eight out of 13 trading groups ended the session in the red, while the remaining five posted gains. The biggest loss came from the Non-life Insurance sub-index, which fell 0.69%. The Others sub-index posted the biggest gain of 0.31%.
