HÀ NỘI — Shares declined on the two national stock exchanges for the third straight session on Monday with strong selling pressure weighing on the indices.

The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange edged down 1.93 per cent to end the morning’s trading at 933.65 points.

On Friday, it fell 0.89 per cent to close at 943.55 points. The index has gained 6.11 per cent in the last month.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also fell 1.54 per cent to 105.01 points.

The index was down 0.61 per cent to finish last week at 106.65 points. It has increased 5.57 per cent over the past month.

More than 295 million shares worth a combined VNĐ5.9 trillion (US$252 million) were traded on the two markets.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation, was down 1.89 per cent to 901.41 points.

According to Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities Co (SHS), the sharp decline of global shares on Friday affected the Vietnamese market, dragging the indices down.

According to Reuters, global stocks tumbled on Friday after data from China and Europe intensified global growth worries as investors weighed the impact of the trade war between the US and China.

On Wall Street, US stocks were hampered by growth worries and a drop in Johnson & Johnson shares, which lost 10.04 per cent, its biggest drop since 2002, as the biggest drag on both the Dow and S&P 500. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 496.87 points, or 2.02 per cent, to 24,100.51, the S&P 500 lost 50.59 points, or 1.91 per cent, to 2,599.95 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 159.67 points, or 2.26 per cent, to 6,910.67.

The VN-Index and VN-30 may decrease further to 900 points and 865 points. However, there is a high likelihood that the VN-Index could maintain above the 930-point level in the next session as long as US markets perform well and the Dow Jones Index stays above the 24,000-point level, SHS said in its daily report.

"We recommend that market traders carefully observe the stock price movements when VN-Index reaching 930 points in the next trading day and consider disbursing if this point level is well maintained," SHS said.

Banking stocks were most affected with the Bank for Investment and Development (BID), Vietinbank (CTG), HDBank (HDB), Techcombank (TCB) and VPBank (VPB) falling sharply.

Oil stocks were also hit, including PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD), PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS), PetroViet Nam Coating JSC (PVB), Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX) and PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS).

Foreign investors were net buyers of VNĐ8.63 billion on the HOSE and VNĐ3.84 billion on the HNX. — VNS