KATHMANDU, Feb. 21 -- Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) on Wednesday declined by 6.46 points to close at 2,026.59 points.

The market opened at 2,033.06 points and rose to the day's high at 2,044.45 points in the first half an hour of trading. But the market went into a continuous fall and hit as low as 2,021.38 points in the last seven minutes. The index recovered around five points in the remaining trading period before the market closed for the day.

The sensitive index that measures the performance of 'A' class companies declined by 1.24 points. The daily turnover further declined to Rs 2.24 billion from Rs 3.11 billion on Tuesday.

Only manufacturing and processing out of the 13 trading groups gained 163.62 points. Of the losers, the hote...