HÀ NỘI — Shares on the two local bourses struggled to maintain last week’s positive momentum, marking just a slight gain on Monday and experiencing strong volatility as investor caution lingered due to ongoing China-US trade tension.

US President Donald Trump warned on Friday he was ready to slap tariffs on virtually all Chinese imports into the US, threatening duties on another US$267 billion of goods on top of $200 billion in imports primed for levies in the coming days.

The moves would sharply escalate Trump’s trade war with Beijing over his demands for major changes in economic, trade and technology policy.

The benchmark VN Index gained 0.15 per cent to close at 970.34 points. It had fallen a total 2.08 per cent last week.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange dropped 0.91 per cent to close at 110,69 points. It dropped nearly 1 per cent last week.

More than 238.8 million shares worth VND4.2 trillion (US$182 million) were traded on both bourses, a slight increase in both trading volume and value over Friday.

Market breadth was negative, with the number of gaining stocks outnumbering declining ones by 246 to 187, while 311 stocks were unchanged.

The VN-30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 biggest shares by market capitalisation and trading liquidity, fell 0.24 per cent to close at 943.31 points.

Among large-caps, real estate developer Vingroup (VIC) was the biggest gainer, adding 2.5 per cent, followed by PLX and VNM, gaining 2.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, the biggest losers included Masan Group (MSN), bankers VPBank (VPB) and Vietinbank (CTG).

Oil-gas stocks saw strong rise of 2.3 per cent as POW, PLX and GAS respectively jumped by 4.3 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent. Real estate stocks also increased by 0.89 per cent, led by VIC, Khang Điền House Trading and Investment JSC (KDH) and Novaland Investment Group Corporation (NVL).

However, financial stocks such as bank and securities stocks dropped by 0.20 per cent and 0.23 per cent after soaring in the morning and suffering heavy selling pressure in the afternoon. Typically, VPBank (VPB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Saigon Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB), Vietnam Maritime Commercial Stock Bank (MSB), Saigon - Hanoi Securities JSC (SHS) and Saigon Securities Incorporation SSI tumbled.

According to Bảo Việt Securities Company (BVSC), after the VNIndex rallied for two days in a row since Friday, investors’ sentiment became more stable.

“However, the market may still need to accumulate before moving towards the resistance zone at 983-986,” it said.

The UPCOM Index on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) inched up 0.07 per cent to finish at 51.04 points. It gained 0.19 per cent to finish at 51.00 points in the previous session. — VNS