Vietnamese stocks slipped on Thursday, with banking and securities shares extending falls and steel stocks tumbling, pressuring the indices amid a strong selling force.
On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the market benchmark VN-Index plunged 1.40 per cent to end Thursday at 1,456.96 points.
It had inched down 0.07 per cent to close Wednesday at 1,477.67 points.
The market's breadth was negative with 141 gainers and 335 losers.
Liquidity hit a new record with a massive 1.36 billion shares traded on the southern bourse, worth nearly VND45.6 trillion (US$2 billion).
The VN30-Index, tracking the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, lost 1.78 per cent to end at 1,477.37 points. Twenty-two out of 30 stocks in the VN30 basket posted losses, while four increased.
Banking and securities stock performed poorly with many losers such as Military Bank (MBB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), VPBank (VPB), Sacombank (STB), Vietcombank (VCB), Tien Phong Bank (TPB), Techcombank (TCB), SSI Securities Inc (SSI), FPT Securities Joint Stock Company (FTS), Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation (HCM), Viet Capital Incorporation (VCI), SSI Securities Incorporation (SSI), Agribank Securities Corporation (AGR) and APG Securities Joint Stock Company (APG).
Pillar stocks in the steel group also lost ground, including Hoa Phat Group (HPG) and Hoa Sen Group (HSG).
Petroleum stocks attracted strong cash flow as a series of stocks in the group gained ground, such as Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), PVPower (POW), PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD), PV OIL (OIL), Binh Son Refinery (BSR) and PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS).
Nineteen out of 25 sector indices on the stock market posted losses, including securities, IT, retail, banking, rubber production, construction materials, logistics, healthcare, food and beverage, real estate, insurance and seafood production and wholesale.
On the other side, gainers were agriculture, oil and gas and construction.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index lost 2.32 per cent to end Thursday at 442.61 points.
During the session, investors poured over VND4.5 trillion into the market, equivalent to a trading volume of 162 million shares. — VNS