Hoa Phat's steel production line. The steel maker's shares lost the most yesterday, down more than 5 per cent. — Photo hoaphat.com.vn
The market settled down in Tuesday's trade, weighed by selling pressure as shares hit highs recently.
On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the market benchmark VN-Index posted a loss of 38.9 points, or 2.86 per cent, to close Tuesday at 1,319.88 points. The index has lost nearly 4 per cent over two days.
The market's breadth was negative as 321 stocks declined while 94 stocks climbed and 40 ended flat.
The liquidity was high which showed strong profit-taking forces from investors. Of which, during the trading day, over 924.5 million shares were traded on HoSE, worth nearly VND30.3 trillion (US$1.32 billion).
As selling pressure mostly appeared on banking and securities stocks in the morning trade, it spread to other sectors including real estate, retail, information technology, and materials in the afternoon.
The VN30-Index, tracking 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, plunged 45.13 points, or 3.04 per cent, to 1,438.97 points. Of the VN30 basket, twenty-six stocks fell while only four rose.
Besides stocks from the logistics and transportation sector, the rest plummeted.
In the top five influencing stocks, Hoa Phat Group (HPG) posted the biggest loss, down 5.12 per cent.
It was followed by Vietcombank (VCB), Vingroup (VIC), Vietinbank (CTG) and Techcombank (TCB). All these stocks lost at least 2.6 per cent.
Many other big stocks fell sharply like MBBank (MBB), down 6.16 per cent, No Va Land Investment Group Corporation (Novaland, NVL), down 1.88 per cent, and PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), down 2.87 per cent.
An analyst from Saigon - Hanoi Securities JSC said that even though selling pressure on the market was strong, the VN-Index still showed its trend had not changed.
Based on the Elliott theory, the 1,400 point level is the strong resistance level of the fifth-wave extension.
Meanwhile, some stocks witnessed gains like Vietjet Aviation JSC (VJC), up 4.83 per cent. It was also the biggest gainer yesterday.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index edged down 3.84 per cent to 306.39 points. The trend was also due to losses in many large-cap stocks. The HNX30-Index, which tracks the 30 biggest stocks on HNX, decreased 5.15 per cent to 474.09 points.
During the session, more than 237.8 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth nearly VND5.7 trillion (US$247.7 million).
While foreign investors were net sellers on HoSE with a value of VND362.7 billion (US$15.8 million), they net bought a value of VND3.87 billion on HNX (US$168,486). — VNS