Inside the trading room of KIS Vietnam Securities Corporation. — Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

Viet Nam’s benchmark VN Index ended Friday morning on a negative note as selling pressure increased following its rally.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange inched down 0.17 per cent to close at 985.67 points. It had rallied a total of 2.7 per cent in the previous six sessions.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange gained 0.55 per cent to end at 111.13 points. The northern market index rose 0.49 per cent on Thursday.

More than 125.4 million shares were exchanged on the two trading bourses, worth VND2.7 trillion (US$119.7 million).

Large-cap stocks tumbled to drag the benchmark VN Index down as the blue chip VN30 Index lost 0.27 per cent to 958.33 points with 22 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation falling.

The industries that had helped the VN Index achieve its six-day rally declined on Friday morning, such as banking-finance, real estate, rubber and plastic production, and food and beverages, data on vietstock.vn showed.

According to securities firms, selling pressure may increase in the afternoon session after a six-day rally has raised the VN Index to its strong resistance zone of 1,000-1,010 points while a large-scale sell-off may be triggered to reduce margin lending.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS