Vietnamese shares were down slightly on Friday morning with moderate trading liquidity as investors were waiting for the finalised review of exchange-traded funds’ portfolios.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange slid 0.24 per cent to close at 994.75 points.

The VN-Index gained 0.20 per cent on Thursday.

More than 91.3 million shares were traded in the morning session, worth nearly VND2 trillion (US$86 million).

The market sentiment was quiet as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were shaking up their portfolios in the quarterly review.

Caution pulled insurance, securities and agriculture stocks down while retail, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and oil and gas companies advanced.

On the southern bourse, all three indices that classify stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity declined between 0.09 per cent and 0.29 per cent.

Large-cap VN30-Index dropped 0.23 per cent to 916.81 points in the morning, dragged by Novaland (NVL), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), SSI Securities (SSI) and FLC Faros Construction (ROS).

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index inched down 0.07 per cent to end at 103.97 points.

The northern market index had gained total 4.07 per cent in the previous seven trading days.

Nearly 19 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VND242.3 billion.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS