Shares declined on Wednesday morning as investors remained cautious of the current market volatility, thus increasing the selling pressure.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange fell 0.40 per cent to close at 923.58 points. It gained 1.07 per cent on Tuesday.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange lost nearly 1 per cent to end at 109.81 points, extending its loss further from a three-day decline of 3.1 per cent.

Nearly 121.5 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND2.44 trillion (US$108.5 million).

Selling pressure remained strong across the two local exchanges, as investors were cautious with the current market volatility, proven by the previous two sessions that had strongly fluctuated.

Financial stocks with banks, insurance companies and brokerages continued to weigh down the market. The three sector indices lost between 0.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent, data on the news site vietstock.vn showed.

The worst decliners among those financial stocks included Eximbank (EIB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Sacombank (STB) and VNDirect Securities (VND), as well as HCM City Securities (HCM) and BIDV Insurance Co (BIC).

On the opposite side, property developers, steel producers and energy firms remained in the positive territory, led by PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD), Coteccons Construction Corp (CTD), Hoa Phat Group (HPG) and Hoa Sen Group (HSG).

The afternoon trade session starts at 1pm. – VNS