Stocks traded in the negative territory on Tuesday morning as investors were cautious with the current market conditions. — Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

Viet Nam’s benchmark VN Index continued to fall on Tuesday morning as investors remained cautious over the market’s current downward trend.

The benchmark index on the HCM Stock Exchange dropped 0.44 per cent to close at 765.39 points. It inched down 0.02 per cent on Monday.

More than 79.3 million shares were exchanged on the southern market, worth VND1.4 trillion (nearly US$63 million).

Trading figures on Tuesday morning -- 86.7 million shares and $72.7 million -- were lower than those on Monday morning. Declining stocks outnumbered increasing stocks by 148 to 88, while 60 other shares closed flat.

Falling liquidity and the imbalance between declining and gaining shares showed that investors were quite pessimistic about the market’s vulnerability and the market could further trade in negative territory in upcoming sessions, brokerage firms said in their Monday reports.

On Tuesday morning, large-cap stocks pulled the southern bourse down with 17 of the 30 largest companies by market capitalisation suffering.

Among the decliners were brewer Sabeco (SAB) and finance-banking firms such as lenders BIDV (BID), Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB) and insurance-finance group Bao Viet Holdings (BVH).

Weak investor sentiment also had a negative impact on the HNX Index of the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, which narrowed its gain to 0.06 per cent from 0.4 per cent.

Market trading liquidity on the northern exchange also decreased from Monday morning, with nearly 21.6 million shares being traded worth VND254.4 billion.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS