Vietnamese shares tumbled on Monday morning as investors increased selling on the market’s prolonged rally and due to negative trading in the global market.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange plunged 2.95 per cent to close at 1,072.47 points. It fell a total of 0.95 per cent last week.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange lost 1.95 per cent to end at 121.55 points. The northern market index was down 2.25 per cent in total last week.

The UPCOM Index on the Unlisted Public Company Market declined by 1.88 per cent to stand at 57.73 points after having dropped nearly one per cent last week.

More than 180 million shares, worth VND5.04 trillion (US$224.25 million), were traded on the national stock market.

Local shares were hit by a strong selling pressure as investors tried to lock in stock gains to earn some profits for the upcoming Tet (Lunar New Year) holidays.

In addition to this, sell-offs that pushed the US, European and Asian shares down also had negative impacts on investor confidence in Vietnamese stocks.

Red was the dominant colour across all 20 sectors in the stock market on Monday morning, led down by financial banking, energy and property shares.

Large-cap stocks were the worst hit as 26 of the 30 largest shares by market capitalisation in the VN30 basket suffered from strong selling pressure.

Among the worst-performing stocks that fell at least four per cent were food producer Masan, Saigon Securities Inc., Vietcombank, BIDV, PetroVietnam Gas and insurer Bao Viet Holdings.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. --- VNS