Vietcombank's employee talks to a client at its office in Hà Nội. The bank's shares dropped nearly 0.9 per cent on Wednesday, contributing to the market's bearish trend. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The market finished lower on Wednesday, as selling pressure outweighed strong cash flows and a large amount of foreign capital was withdrawn from the southern bourse.

The VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) decreased by 7.05 points, or 0.57 per cent, to close the day at 1,238.39 points. It gained nearly 22 points in the previous session.

On the southern market, 215 stocks fell, while 123 inched higher. Liquidity, however, soared to nearly VNĐ30 trillion (US$1.23 billion), an increase of 23.3 per cent over Tuesday's trade. This was equivalent to a trading volume of over 1.26 billion shares.

The southern bourse also saw a great outflow of more than VNĐ1.2 trillion from the foreign capital, of which, nearly VNĐ795 billion was withdrawn from the VN30 basket.

The VN30-Index, which tracked the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, dropped 7.88 points, or 0.63 per cent, to 1,247.95 points. Nineteen ticker symbols of the VN30 basket went down, while nine stocks ticked up, and two ended unchanged.

Saigon-Hanoi Securities JSC (SHS) said that in the short term, the market is likely to surpass the resistance level of 1,250 points in the future. However, there is also a possibility that the accumulative trend will be longer, the securities firm added.

"For the mid-term, we have assessed that the market's uptrend will maintain well, but the market is facing two important resistance levels of 1,250 points and 1,300 points. The fluctuation and accumulative formations of the VN-Index is normal and necessary to help the market keep its uptrend," according to SHS.

Leading the downtrend was Vinhomes (VHM). Shares of the property developer decreased 2.62 per cent.

Other big names in the real estate industry facing big losses were Vingroup (VIC), down 1.82 per cent, Novaland (NVL) down 4.77 per cent, Development Investment Construction JSC (DIG) dropped 1.9 per cent, and Đất Xanh Group (DXG) fell 2.24 per cent.

Also weighing on the sentiment, shares of Vietcombank (VCB), Vinamilk (VNM), Hòa Phát Group (HPG) and Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR) fell at least 0.9 per cent.

The index pared losses on gains of some large-cap stocks, with PV Gas (GAS) being the biggest winner, up more than 2.8 per cent.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also ended lower at 256.11 points, a decline of 0.21 points, or 0.08 per cent.

During the trading day, over 127.1 million shares were traded on HNX, worth nearly VNĐ2.8 trillion.

Meanwhile, foreign investors were net buyers on the northern market as they net bought a value of nearly VNĐ10 billion. — VNS