A worker of PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS). GAS plunged 6.8 per cent on Friday. Photo pvgas.com.vn

HÀ NỘI - Shares finished the week on a negative note as the market was pressured by many large-cap stocks in the oil and gas group dropping strongly.

The market benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) lost 1.19 per cent to end at 1,452.35 points.

It had lost 0.41 per cent to end Thursday at 1,469.83 points.

The market's liquidity was negative with 124 stocks rising, while 346 slid.

Investors poured over VNĐ43.3 trillion (US$1.9 billion) into the southern exchange, equivalent to a trading volume of 1.5 billion shares.

The 30 biggest stocks tracker VN30-Index lost 0.22 per cent, to end at 1,500.05 points. Eleven in the VN30 basket climbed, while 17 decreased.

Financial news site cafef.vn said many oil and gas stocks suffered from correcting pressure and fell deeply, including PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), PV Power (POW), PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD), PV OIL (OIL), Bình Sơn Refinery (BSR) and PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS).

Contrary to the general trend of the stock market, banking stocks rebounded strongly on continued cash flow. Many large-cap bank stocks rose sharply such as HDBank (HDB), Asia Commercial Stock (ACB) and Vietinbank (CTG).

“The market remained in an uptrend for most of the session but reversed to decrease in the ATC session,” said BIDV Securities Co.

“Foreign investors were net sellers on both HSX and HNX.

“VN-Index is expected to maintain movement in the range of 1,360-1,380 points while the market is waiting for more supportive information,” it said.

Foreign investors net sold VNĐ472.82 billion on HOSE, including SSI Securities Inc (SSI) with VNĐ290.0 billion, Hòa Phát Group (HPG) with VNĐ237.8 billion, and VNDirect (VND) with VNĐ128.4 billion. They were net sellers on the HNX with a value of VNĐ11.92 billion.

Twenty-two out of 25 sector indices in the market lost ground, including real estate, securities, oil and gas, wholesale, retail, information and technology, food and beverage, rubber production, construction, seafood processing, construction materials, insurance and logistics.

Banking was the only gaining sector on Friday.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index lost 3.15 per cent to end Friday at 453.97 points.

During the trading session, nearly 251 million shares were traded on HNX, worth nearly VNĐ6.38 trillion. — VNS