Vietnamese shares slipped on Monday as the two main stock indices fell, but the downtrend slowed during the closing minutes thanks to the recovery of blue-chips.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange dropped 1.42 per cent to close at 947.15 points. It had gained 0.36 per cent on Friday.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange lost 3.21 per cent to end at 102.76 points. The northern index declined 0.83 per cent on Friday.

More than 212 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND4.8 trillion (US$210.5 million).

The market breadth was negative as declining stocks outnumbered gaining ones by 346 to 113 while 282 other stocks were unchanged.

According to Bao Viet Securities Company (BVSC), although the market recovered in the last minutes, this uptrend was mostly driven by some large-cap stocks and had no influence on other stock groups.

Massive sell-offs drowned 18 of the 20 sectors on the stock market. Key industries that saw share prices down included banking-financial, energy, rubber and plastic production and retail, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Large-cap stocks were hit strongly by profit-taking pressure. The large-cap VN30 Index fell 1.84 per cent to 930.12 points with 23 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation suffering.

Among the worst-performing stocks in the VN30 basket were steel producer Hoa Sen Group (HSG), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), FPT Corporation (FPT), Masan Group (MSN), Mobile World Group (MWG) and FLC Faros Construction Joint Stock Company (ROS). Of them, HSG hit the daily limit decline of 7 per cent.

Banking stocks, including the big losers of Viet Nam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (CTG), down 4.7 per cent; Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MBB), losing 5.2 per cent and JSC Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BID), decreasing 4.8, drove down the market.

According to Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities Company (SHS), increasing liquidity implied that bottom-fishing demand was appearing as the VN-Index approached the support zone of 900-950 points.

A few large caps, including dairy firm Vinamilk, Vietcombank and brewer Sabeco were supporters of the market.

Foreigners were net buyers Monday, helping to narrow the downtrend of the market.

They net bought VND240.41 billion on HOSE, focusing on Dat Xanh Group JSC (VND63.42 billion), PetroVietnam Gas JSC (VND41.2 billion) and JSC Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (VND34.8 billion). They also net bought VND1.89 billion on HNX.

According to BIDV Securities Company (BSC), liquidity increased sharply compared to the previous week. The support from the net buying of foreign investors was also a positive signal in the session Monday.

BSC recommended investors to continue tracking and wait for the market to break the correction trend to increase their portfolios’ weight. — VNS