Shares inched lower on Monday morning as bank stocks and real estate stocks were weighed on by a strong selling force.

On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the market benchmark VN-Index fell 12.39 points, or 0.83 per cent, to 1,489.32 points.

The market's breadth was negative with only 119 stocks increasing, while 317 stocks declined. Meanwhile, liquidity was jumped compared to the last trading session.

There was over VNĐ14.7 trillion (US$650 million) pouring into the southern market, equivalent to a trading volume of 474.1 million shares.

The index's downtrend was mainly driven by big losses in bank stocks. The VN30-Index, tracking the 30 biggest stocks on the HoSE, posted a drop of 18.19 points, or 1.18 per cent, to 1,527.73 points.

Of the VN30 basket, only six stocks climbed, while 23 slid and one was unchanged.

Vietcombank (VCB) led the downtrend, down 2.33 per cent, followed by BIDV (BID), Techcombank (TCB) and Vietinbank (CTG) which fell in a range of 2.4 - 3.34 per cent.

Other banks that witnessed poor performance were VPBank (VPB), MBBank (MBB), Sacombank (STB) and Sahabank (SHB), all down at least 1.5 per cent.

The benchmark also weighed by big losses in real estate stocks like Vinhomes (VHM), down 1.13 per cent, and Novaland (NVL), down 1.28 per cent.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also edged down 2.42 points, or 0.57 per cent, to 424.47 points. VNS