Customers conduct transactions at a Sahabank office. Shares of the lender dropped 1.7 per cent on Friday, weighing on the market's downtrend. — Photo vietnamplus.vn

HÀ NỘI — The stock market suffered a sharp decline on Friday as selling pressure spread across large-cap stocks, sending the VN-Index below the 1,800-point threshold despite an increase in bottom-fishing demand.

After several sessions of struggling at higher levels, the benchmark quickly came under pressure as a broad range of heavyweight stocks corrected.

On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index closed down 34.02 points, or 1.86 per cent, at 1,795.21 points.

The sharp decline was accompanied by a noticeable increase in liquidity. Trading value on the southern bourse reached nearly VNĐ17 trillion (US$654.4 million), about VNĐ3 trillion higher than in the previous session.

Bottom-fishing demand began to emerge as a number of stocks suffered steep declines, but buying demand was not sufficient to offset selling pressure.

Market breadth on HoSE was heavily negative, with 284 stocks declining, including six hitting the floor prices. Only 51 stocks advanced, of which five reached their ceiling prices.

Large-cap stocks were the main drag on the benchmark, with 28 of the 30 constituents in the VN30 basket ending the session lower. The VN30-Index ended the week at 1,936.7 points, down 40.13 points, or 2 per cent. 

Stocks associated with Vingroup all retreated. Vingroup (VIC) fell 1.78 per cent, while Vinhomes (VHM) lost 1.5 per cent. Vincom Retail (VRE) declined 3.21 per cent and Vinpearl (VPL) dropped 1.79 per cent.

Banking stocks, which had provided support to the market during several previous sessions, also faced widespread selling pressure.

VPBank (VPB) lost 2 per cent and Sahabank (SHB) fell 1.7 per cent, while Sacombank (STB) declined 0.9 per cent. Military Bank (MBB) dropped 1.74 per cent and HDBank (HDB) retreated 2.37 per cent.

Among other major lenders, VietinBank (CTG) fell 1.96 per cent and BIDV (BID) lost 2.06 per cent. Vietcombank (VCB), one of the market's largest stocks by capitalisation, declined 1.36 per cent.

With most VN30 constituents trading in negative territory, positive contributions from advancing stocks were relatively limited.

PetroVietnam Refining and Petrochemical (BSR) provided the strongest positive contribution, adding approximately 0.46 points to the VN-Index.

SeABank (SSB) followed with a contribution of about 0.21 points, while BaoViet Holdings (BVH) added around 0.15 points. 

Similarly, the HNX-Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) dropped 5.69 points, or 2.04 per cent, to close at 272.68 points.

Foreign trading added further selling pressure during the session. Foreign investors recorded net selling of approximately VNĐ867 billion on HoSE. — BIZHUB/VNS