Clients at a transaction office of BIDV. The lender's shares jumped 1.5 per cent on Thursday, cushioning the market's downtrend. — Photo courtesy of the bank

HÀ NỘI — Markets were subdued on Thursday, which was in line with the Asia market's trend, but losses were capped by gains in large-cap stocks. 

The VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) reversed Wednesday's course to finish lower at 1,121.49 points, down 4.94 points, or 0.44 per cent. It gained nearly 10.5 points in the previous session, recovering all losses from Tuesday. 

The breadth of the market was negative as decliners outnumbered gainers by 215 to 103. Liquidity, however, doubled from the previous session to more than VNĐ27.4 trillion (US$1.1 billion). 

Analysts from Saigon - Hanoi Securities JSC (SHS) said that in the short term, the recent strong recovery has helped the VN-Index out of the old accumulation base. After the benchmark successfully tested the support level of 1,100 points, there is a high possibility that the market will continue to maintain a new rally, but technically it has still not formed an uptrend. 

The market was weighed by selling force that caused big losses in pillar stocks. In particular, PV Gas (GAS) was the biggest loser, down nearly 2.4 per cent. 

Other stocks contributing to the losses were Vietcombank (VCB), Vinhomes (VHM) and Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR), down 0.81 per cent, 1.85 per cent and 2.88 per cent, respectively. 

Securities, real estate and manufacturing stocks also performed poorly. 

Shares of VNDirect Securities Corporation (VND) plunged 3.3 per cent, SSI Securities Corporation (SSI) were down 2.23 per cent, SHS tumbled 4.06 per cent, VIX Securities JSC (VIX) dipped 3.32 per cent, Novaland (NVL) decreased 4.37 per cent, Development Investment Construction JSC (DIG) slumped 2.94 per cent, Hoa Sen Group (HSG) decreased 1.1 per cent, and Gelex Group (GEX) fell 2.3 per cent. 

Market pared losses on gains of large-cap stocks led by banking stocks. The 30 biggest stocks tracker VN30-Index rose 2.08 points, or 0.19 per cent, to 1,111.35 points. In the VN30 basket, 13 stocks ticked higher while 14 went down and three stayed flat. 

BIDV (BID) was the biggest gainer today, with an increase of 1.5 per cent. Sacombank (STB), VPBank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB) and Vietinbank (CTG) were all up at least 0.9 per cent. 

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index snapped the 4-day winning streak on Thursday. It decreased 1.79 points, or 0.77 per cent, to close the trading day at 231.84 points. 

Meanwhile, foreign investors extended the net sell for the seventh day in a row. They net sold a total of VNĐ 830.47 billion on both main bourses. — VNS