A man passing a stock trading board. Both market benchmark indices extended their bearish trend due to strong selling pressure. Photo thesaigontimes.vn

HÀ NỘI — The stock market opened the week on a negative note as investors' risk appetite was impacted by strong sell-off activities.

The VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) extended losses for the third straight session. Accordingly, it posted a sharp fall of 26.75 points, or 1.8 per cent, to 1,455.25 points. 

Last week, the index lost 2.27 per cent, mostly due to losses in the last two sessions of the week, each fell more than 20 points. 

The market’s breadth was negative as 409 stocks declined, while only 67 stocks climbed. 

Liquidity was also lower than the previous session. Of which nearly 680.1 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth over VNĐ21.28 trillion (US$929.7 million).

The index’s bearish trend was driven by strong selling pressure with up to 64 stocks hitting floor prices and many large-cap stocks posting great losses. 

The 30 biggest stocks tracker VN30-Index decreased by 17.11 points, or 1.12 per cent, to 1,507.2 points. Twenty-six stocks of the VN30 basket slid, while only four stocks increased. 

Data compiled by vietstock.vn showed that Vinhomes (VHM) led the downtrend with a decrease of 2.8 per cent. Other big stocks influencing yesterday’s loss were in banking and manufacturing sectors, such as BIDV (BID), Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR), Hoà Phát Group (HPG), Vietinbank (CTG), and MBBank (MBB), down in a range of 2.8-5.31 per cent. 

The benchmark index was also under pressure as many small- and medium-cap stocks, especially in the realty sector, hit floor prices. They included Đất Xanh Group (DXG), Hoàng Quân Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate Corporation (HQC), Hồ Chí Minh City Infrastructure Investment JSC (CII), Development Investment Construction JSC (DIG) and Ocean Group JSC (OGC).

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also finished lower yesterday on selling force, weakening for the fifth consecutive session. Accordingly, the index slid by 11.01 points, or 2.55 per cent, to 421.01 points. 

During the session, nearly VNĐ2.6 trillion worth of shares, equal to a trading volume of 95.45 million shares, was traded on HNX. 

Meanwhile, foreign investors were net sellers on both main exchanges after net selling a value of VNĐ275.11 billion. Of which, they net sold a value of VNĐ273.48 billion on HoSE, and a value of VNĐ1.63 billion on the northern market.  — VNS