Vietnamese shares fell on Friday morning, dragged down by selling pressure that hit petroleum firms and by exchange-traded funds’ quarterly portfolio reviews. — Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

Vietnamese shares fell on Friday morning, dragged down by petroleum stocks on the last day of exchange-traded funds’ portfolio reviews.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange inched down 0.11 per cent to close at 1,003.68 points.

The southern market index had rose as much as 0.43 per cent during the morning session after a three-day gain of 1.73 per cent.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange dropped 0.27 per cent to end at 114.74 points after having rallied more than 2 per cent in the previous three days.

More than 192 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND3.94 trillion (US$175 million).

Petroleum stocks pulled the stock market down on the decline of oil prices and profit taking pressure after they had made significant growth.

The worst-performing petroleum stocks were PetroVietnam Coating Corp (PVB), PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS) and PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD).

Today is also the last day for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to finish shaking up their investment portfolios for the next quarter.

As announced, VanEck Vectos Vietnam ETF and FTSE Vietnam ETF – will buy into Vinhomes shares, listed as VHM on the HCM Stock Exchange.

That means the two funds had to offload other stocks to afford the deal, resulting in the slower growth of the large-cap VN30 Index.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation, inched up 0.09 per cent to 972.01 points after having risen as much as 0.75 per cent.

In the large-cap VN30 basket, 17 of its 30 stocks ended down compared to 13 gainers.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS