Vietnamese shares faced difficulties on Thursday as prominent stocks experienced simultaneous declines, exerting a downward influence on the market.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange lost 0.25 per cent to end the trading session at 1,268.25 points.

More than 980 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ23.9 trillion (US$957 million).

Market breadth was negative, with 110 gainers and 397 decliners.

Thursday proved to be a challenging day for Vietnamese shares as the market grappled with a downward trend, primarily driven by a simultaneous drop in large-cap stocks. This confluence of negative movements exerted considerable pressure on the overall market sentiment, causing investors to tread cautiously, said vietstock.vn.

The large-cap tracker VN30-Index was down 0.52 per cent to 1,267.65 points.

Twenty-one of the 30 large-cap stocks in the VN30 basket decreased while five climbed.

Leading the downtrend were the banking codes of Eximbank (EIB), Sacombank (STB), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB), Military Bank (MBB), Techcombank (TCB), SSI Securities Inc (SSI), Mobile World Group (MWG) and PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS).

Energy stocks performed negatively with losers such as PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS), PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services Corporation (PVD), Bình Sơn Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (BSR), Petrovietnam Transportation Corporation (PVT) and Petrovietnam Drilling Mud Joint Stock Corporation (PVC).

"Liquidity decreased from the previous session but was still quite high, showing that supply pressure had returned and hindering cash flow's efforts to support the market. The current weakening signals put pressure on the market and increase the risk of a correction," said Việt Dragon Securities Co.

"However, currently the market will be in a state of exploring supply and demand around 1,265 before getting more concrete signals. Therefore, investors should slow down and reassess the state of the market. In the meantime, it is necessary to manage portfolios in a way that minimises risk."

"Investors should consider taking profits or reducing the proportion of stocks that are struggling in the resistance zone in order to avoid risks. Currently, investors can prioritise holding stocks that are showing good signals from the support zone," it said.

Twenty-one out of 25 sector indices on the stock market lost ground, including insurance, energy, securities, IT, banking, logistics, rubber production, seafood processing, wholesale, real estate, healthcare, construction materials, household appliance, agriculture and construction.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.62 per cent to close Thursday at 242.44 points.

More than 99 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VNĐ2.2 trillion. — VNS