Cautious sentiment dominated the market on Monday morning with a big variation in large-caps' prices.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange struggled to inch up 0.04 per cent to close at 982.71 points.

Nearly 83 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND1.9 trillion (US$81 million).

The large-cap VN30-Index was up 0.14 per cent to 882.00 points.

Eighteen of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation ended the morning session on a negative note.

The market opened the week with cautiousness, in which, large-cap prices differentiated widely, causing market indices to fluctuate.

Kido Group (KDC) was strongly affected by second quarter business results. KDC soared 4.5 per cent to VND19,600 per share. Pre-tax and post-tax profit in the second quarter rose sharply, up 81.5 per cent and 130.3 per cent, respectively.

Other blue-chips like Vietjet Air (VJC), PetroVietnam Power Corporation (POW) and Bank for Investment and Development (BID) also increased. BID was up 2.9 per cent to VND35,900 per share. VJC increased 2.2 per cent to VND133,100 per share.

VJC announced that it was approved by the Securities Commission to buy back a maximum of 25 million shares (equivalent to 4.61 per cent of charter capital). The transaction is carried out via order matching or put through method on the HCM City Stock Exchange from July 26 to August 23, 2019.

On the other side, stocks like Coteccons Construction Corp (CTD), FLC Faros Construction (ROS) and HCM City Securities Corp (HCM) fell and put pressure on the general market.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.29 per cent to end at 106.76 points on Monday morning.

More than 16 million shares were exchanged on the northern bourse, worth VND224 billion.

Afternoon trading starts at 1pm. – VNS