An investor watches stock prices Tân Việt Securities. — VNS Photo Trương Vị

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares returned to negative territory after a two-day increase as investors looked for profits ahead of the national holidays.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange dropped 0.29 per cent to close at 974.13 points.

The VN-Index had gained total 1.14 per cent in the previous two trading days.

More than 149 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth nearly VNĐ3 trillion (US$127.6 million).

Trading liquidity improved slightly compared to Wednesday but remained below the average level of the last 20 trading days as investors chose to earn profits before the five-day national holidays, according to Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS).

The market breadth was negative with 166 declining stocks and 108 gainers while 71 stocks remained unchanged.

“The stock market traded very quietly today with both marginally-moving indices and low liquidity,” SHS said in its daily report.

“Investors seemed bored with the recent market conditions. In addition, as the market is about to close in the first three trading days of next week for the national holidays, investors would rather stay out of the market trading at the moment,” SHS said.

Poor market sentiment pulled 15 of the 20 sector indices down on Thursday, including those that had helped boost the stock market in the previous two days such as banking and financials, petroleum, consumer staple, and real estate.

The large-cap VN30-Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation, fell 0.34 per cent to end at 885.65 points.

Seventeen of the total 30 stocks in the VN30 basket finished in the negative territory and the seven worst decliners were financial and banking firms such as Vietcombank (VCB), VPBank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB) and Saigon Securities Inc (SSI).

Investors still expected the stock market would continue declining in the short term and any rebounds at the moment would mean technical recovery only, SHS said.

All those technical recovery days, or pullbacks, would be opportunities for investors to sell rather than buy in, SHS added.

On Friday, the VN-Index was forecast to bounce and test the resistant 980-985 point range, SHS said.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index inched down 0.19 per cent to end at 106.93 points.

The northern market index had risen a total 1.42 per cent in the previous two trading days.

More than 35 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VNĐ246 billion. – VNS