A transaction office of SSI Securities Inc. SSI lost 1.8 per cent yesterday. Photo SSI

HÀ NỘI Vietnamese stocks witnessed a decline on Wednesday as banking shares extended their downward trend and securities stocks experienced a sharp tumble. This resulted in increased pressure on the indices, driven by a strong selling force prevailing in the market.

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index dropped 1.19 per cent to close at 1,114.20 points.

Market breadth was negative with 448 decliners and 89 gainers.

Some 844 million shares were traded on the southern exchange, worth VNĐ18.5 trillion (US$762 million).

Yuanta Securities is optimistic about the market's future performance, projecting a continuation of its upward momentum in the next session. They anticipate that "the VN-Index could potentially surpass the resistance level of 1,130 points, considering the index's strong fluctuations in a positive direction. An encouraging sign is the increasing cash flow into large-cap stocks."

Asean Securities (AseanSe) takes into account that this week will witness foreign ETFs restructuring their portfolios, leading to potential increased volatility in the near future. Despite this, AseanSe maintains a positive outlook, noting that "the market is currently in a healthy accumulation phase, preparing to overcome resistance and aiming towards the 1,160-point range by the end of the year."

The VN30-Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and liquidity on HoSE, lost 1.28 per cent to reach 1,106.83 points. In the basket, three stocks climbed, and 27 slid.

According to vietstock.vn, the market experienced a decline as banking shares continued to fall and securities stocks faced a significant drop, exerting pressure on the indices due to a strong selling force.

Banking stocks lost ground with most of the stocks in the basket declining, including Vietinbank (CTG), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Tiên Phong Bank (TPB), National Commercial Joint Stock Bank (NVB), Vietcombank (VCB), VPBank (VPB), Military Bank (MBB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Techcombank (TCB) and Sacombank (STB).

HDBank (HDB) was the only gainer in the banking group.

The securities group was also hit strongly with two giants SSI Securities Inc (SSI) and VNDirect Securities Co (VND) dropping 1.8 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively.

On a sector basis, 24 out of 25 sector indices on the stock market lost ground, including banking, wholesale, construction, rubber production, IT, logistics, real estate, food and beverage, retail, seafood production, construction materials, securities, plastic and chemical production.

The only gainer in the group was agriculture.

The same day, HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX) lost 1.42 per cent to close at 228.42 points.

More than 97 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VNĐ2 trillion. — VNS