Investors at Bao Viet Securities Company. Vietnamese shares lost values on Monday morning, pulled down by the poor performance of financial and banking firms. - VNS Photo Truong Vi

Vietnamese markets dropped on Monday morning, dragged down by financial-banking stocks.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange edged down 0.34 per cent to close at 955.37 points.

The southern market index gained 3.45 per cent last week.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange fell 0.39 per cent to end at 106.72 points.

The northern bourse index climbed 2.21 per cent the previous week.

More than 118 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VND2.6 trillion (US$114.6 million).

Beating analysts and investors’ expectations, financial and banking stocks dragged the stock market down on the first trading day of the week.

The banking, securities and insurance sector indices declined between 1 per cent and 1.4 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Among banking stocks, Vietinbank (CTG), TPBank (TPB), MBBank (MBB) and Vietcombank (VCB) were the worst-performing, with losses ranging from 1 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

Securities firms that declined in the morning included Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corp (HCM), Viet Capital Securities (VCI), Bao Viet Securities (BVS) and Saigon Securities Inc (SSI).

On the opposite side, petroleum stocks advanced as crude prices were lifted by an output cut deal made between the Organisation Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia-led exporters last weekend.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS