Vietnamese shares fell on Monday morning as market caution brought down shares of real estate, securities and insurance companies. — Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

Vietnamese shares declined Monday morning as some large-cap were hit by selling pressure and market caution.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange ended almost flat at 987.58 points. It fell total 1.03 per cent to close last week at 987.59 points.

More than 83.6 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND1.65 trillion (US$71 million).

The benchmark index was dragged down by large-cap real estate stocks such as Vingroup (VIC), Vinhomes (VHM) and Novaland (NVL).

The three property blue-chips dropped between 0.4 per cent and 1.3 per cent, pulling the realty sector index down 0.4 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Other sectors that also saw shares fall included technology (down 0.3 per cent), securities (down 0.4 per cent), insurance (down 0.7 per cent) and building materials (down 1.4 per cent).

On the positive side, shares of banks, agriculture firms, food and beverage businesses, and healthcare and pharmaceutical companies advanced to cushion the market.

Among gainers were Vietcombank (VCB), dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), brewer Sabeco (SAB) and petrol firm Petrolimex (PLX).

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.87 per cent to close at 104.25 points.

The northern market index gained total 0.37 per cent last week.

Nearly 16.5 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VND260.3 billion.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS