Viet Nam’s benchmark VN Index fell for a fourth straight session, dragged down by large-cap stocks amid investors’ worries over the market short term prospects and international trade news.

The VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange lost 1.06 per cent to end at 958.19 points.

The southern market index has totaled a 4 per cent loss, this after it was close to 1,000 points last Friday.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange was almost unchanged, closing at 110.48 points.

The northern market index had dropped total 2.75 per cent in the previous three sessions to 110.47 points on Wednesday.

More than 198 million shares were traded on the two bourses, worth VND4.1 trillion (US$181.8 million).

Foreign investors remained as net sellers with VND57.6 billion worth of net sell value recorded on Thursday.

Foreign net sell value reached VND190.5 billion on Wednesday, continuing to target blue-chip stocks such as dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BID) and steel producer Hoa Phat (HPG).

Large-cap VN30 Index edged down 0.94 per cent to 932.12 points at the end of the day with two-thirds of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation suffering.

Among decliners were VNM, BID, property developer Vingroup (VIC), VPBank (VPB), information-technology group FPT Corp (FPT) and budget carrier Vietjet (VJC).

Declining stocks in the VN30 basket were down between 0.1 per cent and 3.4 per cent.

On the sector basis, insurance, real estate and banking industries were among the worst-performing sectors.

The three sector indices lost between 1.5 per cent and 2.8 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The stock market continued to trade in the negative territory, confirming the VN Index reached its short term peak of 1,000 points and it had entered the consolidation stage, Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities JSC (SHS) said in a report.

Trading liquidity continued to fall, indicating that investors were kept on edge before the new US tariff on $200 billion Chinese imports officially takes effect later in the day, SHS added.

Those factors pointed to the fact that the market had ran out of momentum to advance further in the short term, SHS said.

Therefore, the VN Index may keep going down on Friday to test its support level of 950 points, SHS forecast. “The VN Index may have a technical recovery when it reaches that level.” — VNS