Viet Nam’s benchmark VN Index tumbled on Thursday morning, driven by poor investor confidence in the real estate, banking, securities and rubber sectors.

The VN Index on HCM Stock Exchange plunged 2.05 per cent, or 23.34 points, to close at 1,115.19 points. It had fallen 1.3 per cent on Wednesday.

More than 97.6 million shares, worth VND3.3 trillion (US$146.8 million), were traded on Thursday morning

The number of declining stocks tripled that of gaining stocks by 204 to 71 while 30 other stocks ended flat.

Modest trading liquidity and negative market breadth proved that the market sentiment among all investors reached the bottom on Thursday morning.

Dampened investor confidence sent stocks down in 17 of the 20 sectors, of which banks, real estate firms and securities companies were among the worst-declining.

The three industry indices dropped three per cent, 4.6 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively.

Stocks in the large-cap VN30 basket also underperformed, pulling the VN30 Index down by 2.22 per cent, or 24.72 points, to 1,090.98 points, with 22 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation suffering losses.

On Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX Index lost 1.42 points to end at 130.90 points. The northern market index went down by 1.1 per cent on Wednesday.

The UPCOM Index on the Unlisted Public Company Market declined by 1.67 per cent to close at 58.05 points.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS