Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) last week lost 14.62 points to close at 1,530.06 points as investors were reluctant to trade shares amid a bearish trend.

The market opened at 1,544.68 points on Sunday lost 21.88 points to close the day 1,522.8 points. On Monday, the market shed 13.37 points to 1,509.43 points. The index, however, gained 6.65 points and 13.98 points on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

Overall, the domestic bourse closed the week 0.94 percent lower.

“Amid a bearish trend for the past few weeks, prospective buyers were in a wait-and-see mode, leading the market to fall” said Narendra Raj Sijapati, past president of Stockbrokers’ Association Nepal. “Compared to previous weeks, the market, however, appeared stable last week.”

The sensitive index that measures the performance of Group ‘A’ companies also dipped 3.43 points to close at 331 points.

With the fall in the Nepse index, the total value of shares listed on the exchange declined by Rs15.72 billion, with the market capitalisation standing at Rs1,703.23 billion.

Of the nine trading groups, indices of six posted losses. The hydropower sub-index led the lowers’ side with a fall of 67.27 points. Sijapati said most of the hydropower companies’ failure to announce attractive dividends led investors to dump their shares.

Other losers included insurance companies (down 63.25 points), hotels (down 48.38 points), development banks (down 15.36 points), commercial banks (down 13.56 points) and finance companies (down 8.25 points).

The gainers were manufacturing companies (up 3.28 points) and others (up 0.29 points). The trading group was non-mover at 203.91 points. Last week, Everest Bank observed the biggest individual turnover of Rs309.6 million. Sijapati said the bank’s announcement of 70 percent dividend attracted investors. He said the bank has announced its book-close date on December 20.

Siddhartha Bank stood second in terms of transaction amount (Rs103.13 million). Bank and of Kathmandu Lumbini, Machhapuchchhre Bank and Life Insurance Corporation Nepal rounded out the top five.

With 210,000 units of its shares changing hands, NMB Sulav Investment Fund 1 topped in terms of the number of shares traded.

Last week, shares of 156 companies were traded. The overall market transaction amount dipped by 41.15 percent to Rs1.93 billion. The number of shares traded nosedived to 3,126,480 from 4,298,200 units.