HÀ NỘI — Shares ended Monday in negative territory on both national exchanges as investors increased selling force amid fears of a steeper downtrend.

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index decreased 1.78 per cent to end the day at 1,432.60 points.

The downturn on the southern market started on April 5 after the VN-Index hit the historical peak at 1,524.7 points. The VN-Index has lost more than 6 per cent in the last nine sessions – the strongest drop since July 2021.

Finance and real estate are the two stock groups pulling the market down the most.

On Monday, nine of the top 20 shares weighing on the VN-Index most came from these two groups with the biggest losers including Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB), BIDC (BID), Techcombank (TCB), Vinhomes (VHM), Vingroup (VIC) and No Va Land Investment Group (NVL) with losses of between 1.5-4.8 per cent each.

Generally in the last nine sessions, more than a third of the VN-Index's loss came from five stocks, namely BID, VCB, TCB, CTG and VHM.

The financial group's representative index VNFIN also closed Monday down 3.23 per cent while the VNREAL Index of the real estate group decreased by 1.88 per cent.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index declined 3.26 per cent to close at 403.12 points. The northern market’s index also lost nearly 14 per cent since April 4.

Overall market breadth was pessimistic with 755 losers and 223 gainers on both exchanges.

Liquidity increased with nearly 931.7 million shares worth VNĐ28.7 trillion (US$1.25 billion) traded on the two markets, up 28 per cent in volume and 20 per cent in value compared to Friday’s levels.

Seafood stocks shine

On the other side, seafood processing stocks performed well with eight gainers and one loser.

According to UK maritime research company Drewy, the cost of shipping a 40-foot container to the US is showing signs of decline. By the end of March 2022, the freight rate was only $8,152/40ft, down from $9,409/40ft at the beginning of 2022. This will help seafood businesses reduce transportation costs and lift their profits.

At the end of the session, Mekong Fisheries (AAM), Cửu Long Fish (ACL) and Nam Viet Corp (ANV) hit the ceiling price of 7 per cent, while Camimex Group (CMX) and IDI International Investment & Development (IDI) increased by 6.45 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively.

According to many analysts, the market has remained in a sideways trend since February at the range of 1,440-1,500 points and if the support level at 1,440 was not broken, the short-term trend of the VN-Index would still fluctuate in this frame.

With the current situation, it will be difficult for the market to quickly return to higher price areas in the next trading week, but may need to retreat to low price areas to find bottom-fishing demand. If bottom-fishing demand is good enough, as shown by improved liquidity, the market may recover. — VNS