Shares on both local exchanges declined on Wednesday with investors cautious about market volatility.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange closed down 0.31 per cent at 924.40 points. It gained 1.07 per cent on Tuesday.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange dropped 0.42 per cent to end at 110.45 points, making a four-day decrease of 3.5 per cent.

More than 215 million shares were traded on both local bourses, worth VND4.67 trillion (US$207.6 million).

The trading figures represented declines of 35.5 per cent in volume and 38.3 per cent in value compared to the previous session.

Losing stocks outstripped gaining shares by 233 to 206 on the two local exchanges, while 120 others ended flat.

Bank stocks led the decline of the stock market with the sector’s index falling 1.5 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The worst decliners among the 10 listed banks were Sacombank (STB), MBBank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) and VPBank (VPB), which suffered losses of at least 2.1 per cent.

Large-cap stocks also underperformed as half of the 30 largest shares by market capitalisation in the VN30 Index fell, pulling the large-cap index down 0.16 per cent to 913.33 points.

Among stocks that gained, brewer Sabeco (SAB) narrowed its growth from as much as 7 per cent to only 0.3 per cent at the end of the session.

Sabeco shares hit the daily increase limit of 6.8 per cent on Tuesday following reports that Vietnam Beverage Co Ltd had signed up to buy at least a quarter of Sabeco shares at its upcoming sale on December 18.

However, Vietnam Beverage’s parent company – Thai Beverage (ThaiBev) – on Tuesday announced the registration of interest “is actually only a notification submitted to the organiser of the Competitive Offering of Sabeco shares pursuant to a regulation requiring potential investors who have an interest in acquiring 25 per cent or more of Sabeco shares to indicate such a possibility” and “it does not constitute a commitment on the part of Vietnam Beverage to bid for such a portion (or any) of Sabeco shares.”

On the opposite side, energy, real estate and steel shares continued to perform well, especially the two steel producers Hoa Sen Group (HSG) and Hoa Phat Group (HPG) after the Vietnam Steel Association reported steel consumption in the first 11 months of the year rose 18.4 per cent year on year to 15.87 million tonnes.

According to Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities (SHS), strong selling pressure in large-cap stocks, especially banks, was the main reason for the lack of improvement in the short term.

Declining market liquidity indicated that investors were cautious as the market was volatile and they chose to stand by and watch market trading movements, SHS said in a note.

The Ha Noi-based brokerage firm forecast that the benchmark VN Index would struggle in the range of 920 and 930 points on Thursday. — VNS