Products of the Saigon Beer-Alcohol-Beverage Corporation (SAB). SAB lost 3.5 per cent on Friday. — Photo SAB

HÀ NỘI — The stock market decreased on Friday due to the increased profit-taking pressure in the face of the year-end holidays.

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index declined slightly by 0.22 per cent, to close the trading day at 1,007.09 points.

The market's breadth was neutral with 209 shares gained and 189 losing ground, while liquidity still decreased compared to the previous session. Of which, more than VNĐ7.4 trillion (US$314.2 million) worth of shares, equal to a trading volume of over 407 million stocks, was traded on the southern bourse.

The benchmark index was under stronger selling force pressure, with many pillar stocks reporting great losses.

The VN30-Index, tracking the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, was down 0.31 per cent, to 1,005.19 points. Up to 13 ticker symbols of the VN30 basket went down, while 14 stocks edged higher, and three stocks ended flat.

Banking, securities, and food and beverage led Friday's bearish trend. Notable losers included Techcombank (TCB), Sài Gòn Thương Tín Commercial Joint Stock Bank (STB), Military Bank (MBB), Vietnam International Bank (VIB), Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Bank (SHB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB), Tiên Phong Bank (TPB), Liên Việt Post Bank (LPB), Hòa Phát Group (HPG), SSI Securities Inc (SSI), Khang Điền House (KDH), Novaland (NVL), Vinamilk (VNM) and Sabeco (SAB).

However, the index pared losses on gains in oil stocks, such as Việt Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), PV Power (POW).

According to Nguyễn Anh Khoa, head of the Securities Analysis Department of Agriseco, although the market sentiment was quite cautious amid the lack of supportive information prior to the upcoming Tết holiday, bottom-fishing demand still appeared when the index dropped to the important support level of 985-1,000 points.

This showed that many investors were still looking for bottom-fishing opportunities at low prices. Observing market movements, this demand may come from foreign investors, as they continued to be net buyers in the last four sessions with a total value of nearly VNĐ2 trillion.

The expert believes that with the market trend still not having many clear signals and little supporting information, the index might have another 1-2 drops in the first weeks of 2023 to test supply and demand before entering a new trend.

Forecasting the business results of the fourth quarter of 2022, Khoa expects that some industry groups will have grown over the same period of 2021 such as aviation-tourism, or food-beverage.

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX) also dipped by 0.6 per cent, to 205.31 points.

During the session, nearly 35.6 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth nearly VNĐ471.7 billion. — VNS