Shares retreated from the morning trade on Thursday, weighed by strong selling activities after the VN-Index surpassed the key psychological level of 1,100 points.

The market benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) ended the recent rallies to trade lower at 1,101.32 points, down 8.22 points, or 0.74 per cent.

It had gained more than 34 points in the last five days.

The breadth of the market switched to the negative zone, with 216 stocks slumping, while 127 ticker symbols finished higher.

Liquidity, however, soared to the highest in the last six months. Particularly, the trading value on the southern bourse was nearly VND23.7 trillion (US$1 billion), equivalent to a trading volume of more than 1.3 billion shares.

Many stocks in the VN30 basket, which tracks the 30 biggest ticker symbols in market capitalisation and liquidity on HoSE, also performed poorly.

The VN30-Index fell 13.22 points, or 1.2 per cent, to close the day at 1,092.46 points. Up to 23 stocks in the VN30 basket dipped, six traded up and one stayed flat.

Recent good performance of the market triggered stronger profit-taking sentiment, dragging shares across all sectors down.

Data compiled by financial website vietstock.vn showed that banking stocks continued to dominate the market’s general trend. BIDV (BID) posted the biggest loss in market cap on Thursday, leading the downtrend with a fall of 1.47 per cent.

It was followed by Techcombank (TCB), VPBank (VPB), Sacombank (STB), Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB), MBBank (MBB), and Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB). The stocks declined at least 1.14 per cent.

Securities companies also witnessed negative performance today, with SSI Securities Corporation (SSI) down 5.97 per cent, VNDirect Securities Corporation (VND) down 5.97 per cent, Sai Gon - Ha Noi Securities JSC (SHS) lost 3.15 per cent, and Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation (HCM) plunged 3.51 per cent.

Also weighing on the market’s bearish sentiment, stocks of appealing sectors, like manufacturing and real estate, faced a strong sell-off. Popular names such as Novaland (NVL), DIC Group (DIG), Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corporation (KBC), Vinamilk (VNM), Duc Giang Chemicals (DGC), Hoa Sen Group (HSG), and Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR), all posted big falls of more than 1 per cent.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index ended its long rising streak of 11 sessions on Thursday. It traded at 226.78 points, a decrease of 3.55 points, or 1.54 per cent.

Amid the correction seen on both main exchanges, foreign capital continued to run away from the market. Accordingly, foreign investors net sold more than VND316 billion on HoSE, but net bought a value of VND46.74 billion on HNX. — VNS