Vietnamese shares ended Thursday in a sombre mood amid increasing selling pressure which caused the VN-Index to retreat from the 1,200-point mark.

On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index decreased 1.68 per cent, to end at 1,197.60 points.

It had increased 1.27 per cent, to end Wednesday at 1,218.10 points.

More than 510 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, equivalent to VND11.3 trillion (US$485.6 million).

Market breadth was negative with 371 losers and 89 gainers.

Banking stocks lost ground with losers including Military Bank (MBB), Techcombank (TCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BID), VietinBank (CTG), Viet Nam International Commercial JS Bank (VIB), Saigon-Hanoi Commercial JS Bank (SHB), Tien Phong Bank (TPB) and Vietcombank (VCB).

Energy stocks suffered selling pressure with losers such as Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (BSR), PV Power (POW), PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS), PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services Corporation (PVD) and Drilling Mud Joint Stock Corporation (PVC).

“Facing the resistance of 1,220 points, VN-Index dropped and formed a candlestick pattern showing the weakening of demand,” said Viet Dragon Securities Co.

“With this effort, the market still has the possibility to recover but the uptrend will be significantly slowed around the strong resistance area of 1,220 points, and further from 1,240 to 1,250 points.

“Therefore, investors should slow down to observe and take advantage of the uptrend to restructure the portfolio in the direction of minimising risk,” it said.

The 30 biggest stock tracker VN30-Index decreased 1.92 per cent, to end at 1,248.92 points.

Losers in the VN-30 group were FPT Corporation (FPT), Masan Group (MSN), and Khang Dien House (KDH), Phu Nhuan Jewelry (PNJ), Phat Dat Real Estate (PDR), Sabeco (SAB), Vinhomes (VHM) and Mobile World Group (MWG).

In the basket, three stocks climbed, and 27 dropped.

On a sector basis, 24 out of 25 sector indices on the stock market lost ground, including insurance, oil and gas, banking, wholesale, construction, rubber production, IT and logistics, agriculture, real estate, food and beverage, retail, healthcare, seafood production, construction materials, securities, and plastic and chemical production.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index lost 1.65 per cent to end Thursday at 277.68 points. The northern market index had risen 1.23 per cent to end Wednesday at 283.87 points.

Some 55.6 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VND1 trillion. — VNS