HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam’s benchmark VN Index extended losses for a second day on Wednesday as investor confidence remained weak on worries about market conditions following a sharp drop on Tuesday.

The benchmark index on the HCM Stock Exchange lost momentum in Wednesday’s session, closing down 0.05 per cent at 737.82 points. It had fallen 1.1 per cent on Tuesday.

Investors’ worries about market conditions triggered selling and kept trading liquidity high with more than 214.2 million shares traded, worth VND5.53 trillion (US$246 million).

Industries that were expected to push the market up, including banking, real estate, energy and construction, saw declining share prices.

Data from vietstock.vn showed that real estate index fell 0.1 per cent, while banking and energy lost 0.06 per cent each.

The banking and real estate sectors were driven down by Vietinbank (CTG), Sacombank (STB), Vietcombank (VCB), Sacomreal (SCR) and Kinh Bắc City Development Holdings (KBC).

The energy sector was hit by a second-day fall in oil prices. US crude West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dropped 1.7 per cent to trade at $48.82 a barrel.

On the opposite side, shares of steelmakers Hoa Sen Group (HSG), Nam Kim Steel JSC (NKG) and Đại Thiên Lộc Corp (DTL) posted good gains after the Ministry of Industry and Trade imposed a protectionist policy on imported coloured steel products.

HSG hit its daily trading limit of 6.9 per cent, NKG surged 6.6 per cent and DTL gained 1.9 per cent.

Shares of other local steel producers such as Hòa Phát Group (HPG) and Tiến Lên Steel JSC (TLH) also benefited from the news, rising 3.6 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively.

Vietnam Investment Securities (IVS) said in a report that a lack of leading sectors in the stock market has triggered sales to earn some profits, therefore, the falls of the last two days mean the market could again go down in upcoming sessions.

There will be slight falls, meaning there is little chance of a big market correction as large-cap stocks will not fall steeply while speculative stocks that had recorded big gains before will begin to fall, IVS said.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX Index gained 0.72 per cent to finish at 93.91 points, reversing from a decline of 0.6 per cent on Tuesday.

More than 74.2 million shares were exchanged on the northern bourse, worth VND758.5 billion. — VNS