The entrance of Times City urban complex, which is invested by Vingroup, in Hà Nội. Photo vinhomesgardeniacity.com

HÀ NỘI — Shares tread water on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange on Thursday as slumps of some heavyweight shares bit into the market’s gain in the morning.

The VN-Index closed at 1,345.87 points, almost unchanged compared to the previous session. The southern bourse’s index rose 0.5 per cent on Wednesday.

Liquidity continued to decline with nearly 600 million shares worth VNĐ18.2 trillion (US$791.4 million) traded, down 13 per cent in volume and 5 per cent in value from the previous day.

The market breadth was positive, however, when the number of gainers outnumbered the losers by 212-187 while 69 closed flat.

Vingroup (VIC) and Vinhomes (VHM) were behind the market’s negative performance in the afternoon trade. VIC slipped nearly 4 per cent while VHM dropped 2.2 per cent.

VIC witnessed the highest trading volume in the past five years when its price fell to the lowest since February this year, being traded at VNĐ87,800 ($3.82) per share. Nearly 19 million VIC shares worth VNĐ1.68 trillion changed hands, including 3.75 million in the put-through transactions.

Foreign traders on Thursday offloaded a net volume of 12 million VIC shares and were all absorbed by domestic traders.

VHM also closed at the two-month low of VNĐ80,100 per share following the information KKR-backed Viking Asia Holding II Pte Ltd completed its sales of nearly 32 million shares of Vinhomes, raking in more than VNĐ1 trillion in profit in more than one year of investment.

The fund acquired VHM shares in June 2020 at the VNĐ70,000 per share. Its divestment, taking place between August 18 and September 14, was made at an average price of VNĐ108,500 apiece.

On the bright side, banking shares performed well with many banks rising by more than 1 per cent, including Vietcombank (VCB), BIDV (BID), Vietinbank (CTG), Military Bank (MBB), VPBank (VPB) and Techcombank (TCB).

According to Viet Dragon Securities Co (VDSC), the liquidity decreased but was still above the 50-session average, showing the market was still in dispute, but selling pressure was cooling down.

“The VN-Index will retest the resistance area of 1,350 points in the next session. If it can break this resistance area, the market has a chance to extend the short-term uptrend. With the signal that the cash flow is still trying to support the market, this scenario is expected to happen,” analyst Phương Nguyễn wrote in a note.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index rose 0.71 per cent to close at 353.24 points. More than 166.5 million shares worth VNĐ3.4 trillion were traded here. — VNS