Shares were mixed on Friday morning, as the market benchmark VN-Index fell under pressure of profit-taking activities, while the HNX-Index was still on a rallying trend.

On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index dropped by 1.5 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 1,527.07 points.

Market breadth was negative, while liquidity was lower than yesterday. Over 583.4 million shares were traded on HoSE, worth more than VND18.1 trillion (US$797.3 million).

The index's loss was mainly driven by large-cap stocks, especially in banking and real estate sectors. Of which, the 30 biggest stocks tracker, the VN30-Index, declined 8.28 points, or 0.54 per cent, to 1,536.67 points. Twenty-two stocks in the VN30 basket edged down, while seven rose and one remained flat.

Vingroup (VIC) led the downtrend this morning, down 1.24 per cent. The other two stocks of the Vin family also fell after surging in the previous session, with Vinhomes (VHM) down 0.47 per cent and Vincom Retail (VRE) down 1.4 per cent.

Another real estate stock posting big losses was Novaland (NVL), down 1.36 per cent.

Market sentiment was also weighed on by a selling force in bank stocks with Vietinbank (CTG) down 1.32 per cent, Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SSB) down 3.75 per cent and VPBank (VPB) down 1.28 per cent.

The index pared losses thanked to gains in some big stocks like PV Gas (GAS), Masan Group (MSN), Gelex Group (GEX) and Becamex (BCM), which all posted gains of at least 2 per cent.

Meanwhile, on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index climbed 2.32 points, or 0.48 per cent, to 487.21 points. VNS