KATHMANDU: The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) witnessed a sharp decline on Wednesday, the fourth trading day of the week, with the index falling by 52.87 points to close at 2,949.19.

This comes after a modest gain of 30.76 points on Tuesday, which had pushed the index to 3,002.07.

On Monday, the index had risen by 7.10 points, while last week’s Wednesday had seen a drop of 18.44 points. Prior to that, the NEPSE index had shown consistent growth for eight consecutive trading days.

Trading volume also saw a dip on Wednesday, totaling Rs 16.44 billion compared to Rs 18.24 billion the previous day.

Of the traded companies, share prices of 226 fell, while only 23 registered gains.

Notably, Sanvi Energy and Trade Tower Company hit the upper circuit due to a significant rise in their share prices.

Among the sectoral indices, the banking sector declined by 1.63 percent, development banks by 3.34 percent, finance by 2.87 percent, hotel and tourism by 2.27 percent, and hydropower by 1.79 percent.

Similarly, the investment sector dropped 1.67 percent, life insurance by 1.77 percent, manufacturing by 1.32 percent, microfinance by 3.64 percent, non-life insurance by 1.74 percent, and trading sector by 2.45 percent.