Local shares ended Monday morning’s session on a negative note due to the underperformance of large-cap companies in the VN30 basket. — Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

Vietnamese shares dropped slightly on Monday morning, led by large-cap companies.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange edged down 0.24 per cent to end at 912.14 points.

The southern market index fell a total 1.14 per cent last week.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange went down 0.22 per cent to close at 102.78 points.

The northern market index made a weekly decline of total 2.6 per cent last week.

Trading liquidity was modest with more than 89 million shares traded, worth nearly VND1.7 trillion (US$75 million).

The market breadth was negative as the number of declining stocks doubled that of gainers by 258 to 130.

Large-cap stocks performed below par and provided little support for the market.

The blue-chip VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisaiton, was down 0.46 per cent to 881.54 points.

In the VN30 basket, 21 of the 30 largest stocks were in negative territory.

Data on news site vietstock.vn showed that 12 of the 20 industries saw shares decline.

The worst-performing industries were food and beverage, healthcare and pharmacy, rubber and plastics, and banking.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS