Vietnamese shares declined for a third straight session on Thursday as market sentiment soured on the volatility of global markets.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange fell 1.19 per cent to close at 957.35 points. It has dropped total 3.3 per cent in the last three sessions.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange lost 2.38 per cent to end at 107.06 points and totalled a three-day decline of 4.4 per cent.

Nearly 202 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges worth VND4.84 trillion (US$215 million). The figures were down 9 per cent in volume and 26 per cent in value compared to Wednesday.

The market was on the negative side as the number of declining stocks doubled that of gainers by 299 to 151, while 94 other stocks ended flat.

Bad news from the global stock markets continued to have a negative impact on Vietnamese shares, especially fears of a trade war between the US and China given rising tension between the two largest economies.

Foreign investors turned to net buyers and recorded VND42 billion in net buy value, which was a big drop compared to their VND2.2 trillion worth of net purchases made on Wednesday.

The stock markets opened Thursday on a positive note, however, an increase in selling pressure sent them down sharply. Though investors showed some bottom-fishing efforts during the day, it could not boost the indices.

Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities Company (SHS) said in a note that investors were disappointed in the fact the two exchange indices had failed to recover on strong purchases for low-price stocks and that dampened their confidence in the market at the day-end period.

Market trading liquidity showed no signs of recovery and it proved capital had not returned to the market, SHS said, adding that cash continued to flow to the derivatives market and raised the trading volume of the VN30F1807 futures to a new high of 140,000 contracts.

The capital outflow resulted in 19 of the 20 sectors seeing share prices drop, according to vietstock.vn, including large-cap stocks in the VN30 basket.

The large-cap VN30 Index fell 1.48 per cent to 947.03 points at the end of the day with 27 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation declining.

“In our view, the stock market has been experiencing a settlement stage with depleting liquidity and it will continue to suffer from high volatility in the next sessions.” — VNS