The fall of world stock markets negatively impacted the Vietnamese market on Friday morning, weighing down heavyweight shares. — Photo cafef.vn

The fall of world stock markets negatively impacted the Vietnamese market on Friday morning, weighing down heavyweight shares.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange fell 2.02 per cent to close at 880.25 points.

The VN-Index increased 0.28 per cent to close Thursday at 898.44 points.

More than 127 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND2.5 trillion (US$108 million).

On the US market, the S&P 500 fell 4.42 per cent, its largest percentage drop since August 2011, on Thursday.

Hopes that the epidemic that started in China would be over in a few months and economic activity would return to normal have been shattered, as new infections reported around the world now surpass those in China.

Real estate, insurance, banking, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, rubber and utilities sectors were among the decliners.

Major stocks such as PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), VPBank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Vietinbank (CTG), Bank for Investment and Development (BID) and Vincom Retail (VRE) were among large-cap decliners that were hit by strong selling.

Large-cap tracker VN30-Index was down only 2.07 per cent to close at 830.76 points, with 1 gainer and 29 decliners.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 1.35 per cent to end at 107.79 points.

The northern market index rose 2.48 per cent to end Thursday at 109.26 points.

More than 23.5 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VND239 billion.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm.--VNS