The stock market decreased on Friday due to the increased profit-taking pressure in the face of the year-end holidays.

On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index declined slightly by 0.22 per cent, to close the trading day at 1,007.09 points.

The market's breadth was neutral with 209 shares gained and 189 losing ground, while liquidity still decreased compared to the previous session. Of which, more than VND7.4 trillion (US$314.2 million) worth of shares, equal to a trading volume of over 407 million stocks, was traded on the southern bourse.

The benchmark index was under stronger selling force pressure, with many pillar stocks reporting great losses.

The VN30-Index, tracking the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, was down 0.31 per cent, to 1,005.19 points. Up to 13 ticker symbols of the VN30 basket went down, while 14 stocks edged higher, and three stocks ended flat.

Banking, securities, and food and beverage led Friday's bearish trend. Notable losers included Techcombank (TCB), Sai Gon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (STB), Military Bank (MBB), Vietnam International Bank (VIB), Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank (SHB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB), Tien Phong Bank (TPB), Lien Viet Post Bank (LPB), Hoa Phat Group (HPG), SSI Securities Inc (SSI), Khang Dien House (KDH), Novaland (NVL), Vinamilk (VNM) and Sabeco (SAB).

However, the index pared losses on gains in oil stocks, such as Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), PV Power (POW).

According to Nguyen Anh Khoa, head of the Securities Analysis Department of Agriseco, although the market sentiment was quite cautious amid the lack of supportive information prior to the upcoming Tet holiday, bottom-fishing demand still appeared when the index dropped to the important support level of 985-1,000 points.

This showed that many investors were still looking for bottom-fishing opportunities at low prices. Observing market movements, this demand may come from foreign investors, as they continued to be net buyers in the last four sessions with a total value of nearly VND2 trillion.

The expert believes that with the market trend still not having many clear signals and little supporting information, the index might have another 1-2 drops in the first weeks of 2023 to test supply and demand before entering a new trend.

Forecasting the business results of the fourth quarter of 2022, Khoa expects that some industry groups will have grown over the same period of 2021 such as aviation-tourism, or food-beverage.

The HNX-Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX) also dipped by 0.6 per cent, to 205.31 points.

During the session, nearly 35.6 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth nearly VND471.7 billion. — VNS