HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares extended losses for a third straight day as investor confidence remained weak and foreign selling surged.

The benchmark VN Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange dropped 0.42 per cent to close Thursday at 897.15 points.

Việt Nam’s benchmark index has lost total 2.28 per cent after the last three sessions.

The HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange edged down 0.18 per cent to end at 101.02 points.

The northern market index has fallen nearly 2.3 per cent in total after three trading days.

More than 203.7 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VNĐ4.56 trillion (US$202.7 million).

Thursday trading figures were up 11.4 per cent in volume and 16.7 per cent in value day-after-day.

Across the two exchanges, declining stocks slightly overwhelmed gainers by 235 to 191.

According to Bảo Việt Securities JSC (BVSC), the market suffered because of fears about market volatility.

Trading liquidity rose slightly but remained below the moderate level (of the last 20 sessions). Meanwhile, while the market breadth was negative,  the difference between the two sides wasn’t significant, BVSC said.

There was wide differentiation among stock groups, BVSC said, proving that attention was divided into different sectors.

Eleven of the 20 sector indices ended on a negative note and nine advanced, data on vietstock.vn showed. Declining sectors included insurance, real estate, securities, construction materials, and logistics.

The large-cap VN30 Index slipped 0.75 per cent to finish at 864.98 points with half of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation in the basket falling.

“Investors are waiting for a sharper decline of the market to seek short-term investment opportunities,” BVSC said in a report.

“Selling pressure is increasing,” BVSC said, adding that the market is likely to undergo strong volatility in the short term.

In that case, the supportive level for the VN index would be the threshold of 889-892 points in the coming sessions, BVSC said.

What also weighed on the Vietnamese market was the outflow of foreign investment.

Investors on Thursday were net sellers, recording more than VND500 billion, compared to Wednesday’s number of VND13 billion.

On the opposite side, bank, petroleum agriculture and plastic production were among the sectors that gained on Thursday. — VNS