A booth of FPT at an event in HCM City. The company's shares soared more than 1 per cent on Thursday, helping pare the market's losses. — Photo fpt.com
Shares extended losses on Thursday with most industries closing in the red, while foreign investors withdrew capital from the market.
The market's benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) finished lower at 1,110.13 points, a decline of 4.07 points, or 0.37 per cent. It had lost more than 13.4 points on Wednesday after rising for three consecutive sessions.
The breadth of the southern market continued to be in the negative territory with 209 stocks falling and 102 advancing. Liquidity also decreased from the previous trade, of which, the trading value was down 20.6 per cent to VNĐ 14.68 trillion (US$605.2 million).
The VN30-Index, tracking the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, also dropped 2.34 points, or 0.21 per cent, to 1,104.49 points. Seventeen ticker symbols in the VN30 basket inched down, while seven stocks increased and six ended flat.
Analysts from the Saigon-Hanoi Securities JSC (SHS) said that in the short term, the index is still trading above the 1,100 points and there is still a possibility for a technical recovery scenario with the target resistance level of around 1,150 points.
"However, we cannot rule out an expectation that the market will fluctuate in the expected mid-term accumulation area of 1,100-1,150 points," SHS added.
Leading the market's downtrend on Thursday were realty, banking and manufacturing stocks. In particular, Vinhomes (VHM) was the biggest loser as shares of the property developer posted a fall of 1.1 per cent.
It was followed by Hòa Phát Group (HPG), VPBank (VPB), Novaland (NVL) and Sabeco (SAB). All the stocks dipped in a range of 1-4.12 per cent.
However, the market pared losses on gains of some pillar stocks that led by Vietcombank (VCB). The lender's shares rose 0.84 per cent on Thursday.
Also helping cushion the bearish sentiment, FPT Corporation (FPT) jumped 1.05 per cent and Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) was up 0.9 per cent.
On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also settled down at 227.23 points, a decline of 1.19 points, or 0.52 per cent.
Foreign investors were net sellers on the main exchange as they net sold a value of VNĐ358.2 billion on HoSE, but net bought VNĐ35.2 billion on HNX. As a result, they net sold VNĐ323 billion on the two main bourses. — VNS