Vietnamese shares fell deeper on Thursday morning as speculative stocks began to lose momentum on profit-taking while trading of large-cap stocks remained quiet.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange dropped 0.46 per cent to close at 923.29 points. It had lost total 1 per cent in the previous two days.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange edged down 0.22 per cent to end at 103.36 points. The northern market index declined by total 3.75 per cent in the previous three sessions.

More than 136.4 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND2.25 trillion (US$100.3 million)

Blue chips continued underperforming such as Vincom Retail (VRE), budget carrier Vietjet (VJC), FLC Faros Construction (ROS), VPBank (VPB) and brewer Sabeco (SAB).

Those stocks were among 19 large-cap stocks that declined in the VN30 basket, pulling the large-cap index down 0.51 per cent to 911.01 points.

Speculative stocks started declining after having strong gains in recent sessions, such as Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) and its sub-unit HAGL Agrico (HNG), Hoang Huy Investment Services JSC (HHS) and Duc Long Gia Lai Group JSC (DLG).

The decline of both large-cap and speculative stocks made the market breadth condition turn negative with 264 declining stocks against 144 gainers.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS