A BIDV teller wears a mask. The bank's shares lost 2.5 per cent on Monday. — Photo baochinhphu.vn

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares succumbed to selling pressure on Monday as investors booked profits after a three-day rally.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange dropped 0.76 per cent to end at 770.77 points.

The VN-Index retreated after having made a three-day increase of a total 1.28 per cent in the previous three trading days.

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange fell 0.63 per cent to close at 106.3 points, stepping down from a three-day rally of 2.17 per cent.

More than 348.7 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VNĐ5.08 trillion (US$216.3 million).

Investors looked for profits after local stocks had gained and pushed the VN-Index up to near 780 points last week, Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS) said in its daily report.

Bank stocks weighed down the market as the sector index dropped 2.5 per cent, according to vietstock.vn. Twelve of 13 listed banks on both markets declined.

The worst-performing bank stocks included Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Military Bank (MBB) and Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Bank (SHB).

Vietcombank shares dropped 3 per cent, BIDV shares lost 2.5 per cent, MBBank shares shed 2.2 per cent, and SHB shares were down 1.8 per cent.

Following banks were other financial stocks such as brokerage houses and insurers. Securities and insurance indices were down 1.2 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively.

The decline of financial-banking stocks also hurt the large-cap groups on both markets.

The large-cap trackers VN30 and HNX30 indices decreased by 0.74 per cent and 0.87 per cent, respectively.

Other large-cap companies that also saw share prices fall were petrol firm Petrolimex (PLX), sugar producer Thành Thành Công-Biên Hòa (SBT), realty firm Vincom Retail (VRE), PetroVietnam Coating (PVB) and Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS).

Large-cap VN30 futures ending May were down 4.6 points to finish Monday at 692.50 points, showing investors were still pessimistic about the market’s future prospects, SHS said.

Data on both local exchanges showed investors fleeing from large-cap stocks into mid-cap and small-cap shares.

It was the earnings season, so it was normal that local shares differentiated, MB Securities Co (MBS) said in a note.

It had been expected that investors would seek profits in large-cap stocks and turn their attention to smaller ones, the company said.

The market growth would be bumpy in coming days but the short-term uptrend was maintained as cash flow remained high on the two exchanges, MBS added. — VNS