Shares opened high but slipped toward the end of Friday’s morning session as strong divergence appeared among large cap stocks.

The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange inched down 0.06 per cent to 991.89 points.

The Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) which carried the biggest market support on Thursday dropped 0.6 per cent, while Vinamilk (VNM) also slowed to just 0.4 per cent.

Many blue chips fell in the morning, especially in the finance sector, such as Vietinbank (CTG), Military Bank (MBB), VPBank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH) and Saigon Securities Inc (SSI)

Gainers included brewer Sabeco (SAB), Vietjet (VJC), Vincom Retail (VRE), Vietcombank (VCB) and sugar manufacturer Thanh THanh Cong-Bien Hoa JSC (SBT), but their growth was small (less than 1 per cent each) and failed to prop up the market.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was down 0.05 per cent to end at 105.16 points.

Liquidity went up with 114 million shares worth VND3 trillion (US$127 million) being traded, up 14 per cent in volume and 41 per cent in value compared to Thursday morning’s figures.

The afternoon session starts at 1pm. — VNS