Vietnamese shares ended Tuesday morning in negative territory as large-cap stocks were hit by strong profit-taking pressure and poor investor confidence.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange fell 0.37 per cent to close at 1,192.22 points. It had gained a total of 2.5 per cent in the previous two sessions to touch its new high of 1,196.61 points on Monday.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange closed at 135.38 points, hardly changing from its previous day-end score of 135.40 points. It had increased a total of 2.6 per cent in the previous two days.

More than 165.2 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND4.64 trillion (US$206.5 million).

The market breadth turned to the negative side, with gainers being outnumbered by decliners (152 to 264) and 98 others staying unchanged.

Large-cap stocks underperformed on Tuesday morning, perhaps after the US stock market traded negatively on rising tension between China and the United States, triggering fears among investors about a trade war.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation, was down 0.6 per cent to 1,164.26 points, with 20 stocks marking losses.

The worst decliners among them were FLC Faros Construction (ROS), digital retailer Mobile World (MWG), steel producer Hoa Sen (HSG) and Coteccons Construction Corp (CTD).

On the opposite side, financial-banking stocks extended their growth to support the market, such as insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), MBBank (MBB) and HCM City Securities (HCM).

The UPCOM Index on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) retreated 0.91 per cent from its previous three-day increase of 2 per cent, closing Tuesday morning at 60.36 points.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS