Shares opened the new trading week on a negative note as blue chips plummeted across the two national stock exchanges.

On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index gave up more than 35 points, or 3.44 per cent, to close Monday at 985.21 points.

The southern bourse’s index lost more than 3 per cent last week.

The market was in favour of the sellers with 400 stocks declining, only 65 rising and 130 closing flat.

Only one out of 25 sectors tracked by vietstock.vn performed well while 24 slumped, of which 18 recorded an average loss of more than 2 per cent. Financials led the losers with an average decrease of 8 per cent while securities, retail, agricultural processing, and construction materials decreased by more than 6 per cent on average each.

Large caps were behind the market slump as 29 of the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity lost value and only one gained. Only PV Gas (GAS) increased by 1 per cent and failed to rescue the market.

Vinhomes (VHM), Vingroup (VIC) and Vietinbank (CTG) topped the list of shares dragging the VN-Index most. CTG dropped 5.8 per cent, VHM decreased 5.6 per cent and VIC fell 4 per cent.

Others in the top 10 worst performers also included VPBank (VPB), Hoa Phat Group (HPG), Techcombank (TCB), Masan Group (MSN), Mobile World Investment (MWG), Military Bank (MBB) and Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR) with losses of between 3 per cent and 7 per cent each.

Liquidity remained modest with more than 623 million shares worth nearly VND10 trillion (US$403.2 million) being traded, the second session which saw the trading value below VND10 trillion since November 28.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also dropped 3.31 per cent to end the day at 198.50 points.

Liquidity increased sharply, however. The trading value more than doubled Friday’s value, reaching VND1.3 trillion while volume rose 96.2 per cent to more than 98 million.

Foreign traders were net buyers on both exchanges, being responsible for total net buy value of VND467 billion.

According to Nguyen Anh Khoa, head of the analysis department at Agribank Securities Corporation, in the last week of the year, although the trend of net withdrawal before the holiday is likely to continue, there will be an opportunity for investors to accumulate stocks at low prices, especially in the VN30 group to take advantage of the net buying effect of foreign investors in the coming sessions. — VNS