The market, which opened at 866.16 points on Sunday, dropped points for the following two days, before gaining 9.89 and 8.55 points on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

Megnath Upadhyaya, managing director of Primo Securities, said last week’s marginal fall suggested the market would bounce bank in the coming days. He attributed the fall over the last few weeks to political uncertainty and confusion created by the implementation of paperless transaction of bank stocks.

“In addition, a number of investors are diverting to promoters’ shares of small hydropower projects which are in the process of construction,” he said.

The hydropower group (down 35.11 points) led the losers side comprising manufacturing, development danks, commercial banks, trading and finance companies. The gainers were insurance companies and hotels—up 15.01 and 12.28 points, respectively. The others group remained stable at 704.91 points.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of blue chips fell 0.74 points to close at 184.16 points. Chilime Hydropower Company registered the highest individual transaction of Rs 105.28 million. Nepal Life Insurance, Machhapuchchhre Bank Nepal Bangladesh Bank and Soaltee Hotel rounded out the top five. National Hydropower took the pole position in terms of the number of shares traded (216,000 units).

Along with the benchmark index, the overall market transaction fell 4.4 percent to Rs 1.13 billion. The number of shares traded also dropped to 2,549,430 from 2,937,190 units.

Meanwhile, 1 million general shares of Kalinchok Bikas Bank were listed on the exchange last week.