Vietnamese stocks declined on Friday morning as shares of large-cap companies were hit by investors' profit-taking pressure. — Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

Vietnamese shares edged down on Friday morning as blue chips lost ground on strong selling pressure.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange dropped 0.38 per cent to close at 982.24 points.

The VN-Index was up 0.41 per cent on Thursday.

More than 77 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND1.58 trillion (US$68 million).

The stock market was dragged down by large-cap shares as they were hit by strong selling due to a lack of supportive information among listed companies.

The VN30-Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and liquidity, fell 0.25 per cent to 893.77 points.

Sixteen of the 30 largest stocks in the VN30 basket declined, including real estate firms Vingroup (VIC) and Vinhomes (VHM), Vietcombank (VCB), Techcombank (TCB), and VPBank (VPB).

Those 16 declining large-caps lost between 0.2 per cent and 2.7 per cent.

On the sector basis, banks, property developers and petroleum firms were among the worst-performing industries.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index decreased by 0.32 per cent to end at 107.23 points.

The northern market index inched up 0.13 per cent on Thursday.

More than 19.2 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VND191.5 billion.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS