Vietnamese shares stuggled on Friday morning as companies suffered from increased profit taking pressure.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange inched up 0.29 per cent to close at 863.91 points.

The HNX-Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange slid 0.02 per cent to end at 109.62 points.

The VN-Index and HNX-Index gained 0.46 per cent and 0.68 per cent on Thursday.

Nearly 213 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VND2.87 trillion (US$124 million).

The local stock market was hit by increased selling after it had made strong gains in the last two months.

The market also began running out of supportive news as companies started releasing earnings reports for the first four months amid the impact of COVID-19.

Retailers, brokerages, technology firms, food and beverage companies, and seafood processors were among those weighing on the stock market.

On the other side, shares of banks, real estate firms, agriculture companies and home appliance producers cushioned the market sentiment.

Large-cap stocks also varied as their tracker VN30-Index was up only 0.20 per cent with 18 of the 30 largest stocks by market value and trading liquidity declining.

Only eight large-cap stocks increased while four were unchanged.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS