Photo shows an office of Bảo Việt Bank, a member of the insurance-finance group Bảo Việt Holdings (HoSE: BVH). Bảo Việt's shares dipped 6.9 per cent on Friday, totalling a two-day sharp fall of 13.9 per cent. — VNA/VNS Photo Trần Việt

HÀ NỘI — Markets concluded the week on a negative note due to poor investor sentiment and low liquidity.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange fell 0.45 per cent to close at 974.14 points on Friday.

The VN-Index inched down 0.12 per cent on Thursday.

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange slipped 0.12 per cent to end Friday at 106.87 points.

The northern market index lost 0.43 per cent the previous day.

On Friday, more than 176.6 million shares were traded on the two local bourses, worth nearly VNĐ3.6 trillion (US$154 million).

Trading liquidity remained low, indicating investors were unwilling to trade due to the uncertainty of local stocks.

According to Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities JSC (SHS), investors seem to be not ready to return to the market after the holiday period as there are only two trading sessions ahead of the next weekend.

This made liquidity below the 20-day average amount, SHS said.

BIDV Securities Company (BSC) said investors seemed to keep waiting for more support signals when the liquidity continued to remain low Friday.

According to BSC, the evolution of the Sino-US trade negotiation process, whose official results announced on May 10 and the FED’s maintaining interest rates, will be a market impact factor in the short and medium term.

Declining stocks were dominant over gainers by 276 to 187 on both local bourses, while 104 stocks were flat.

The large-cap VN30-Index advanced 0.17 per cent to 895.42 points on Friday but nearly half of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation in the basket lost ground due to VN-30 investment funds ETFVN30’s portfolio review on Friday.

Decliners included Vinhomes (VHM), Vingroup (VIC), Vietcombank (VCB) and Vincom Retail (VRE). In particular, VHM decreased by 1.1 per cent to VNĐ90,400 per share. VIC dropped 1 per cent to VNĐ112,500 per share. VRE decreased by 1 per cent to VNĐ36,100 per share. VCB slid 0.3 per cent to VNĐ66,700 per share.

The insurance industry index remained the worst-performing sector as it slumped 5.1 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The sector was dragged down by Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH), whose shares hit the daily limit decline of 6.9 per cent. BVH shares have lost a total of 13.9 per cent since Thursday.

Bảo Việt Securities Company (BVSC) said the market was forecast to fluctuate sideways next week.

“VN-Index will possibly fluctuate in the area between 980 points and 965-968 points early next week. We expect that the market will see better movements toward the weekend and pass the above resistance zone, heading toward 986-992 points in the short run.”

Once VN-30 investment funds finish reviewing their portfolios, stocks are expected to start stabilising. Several stocks, including Hòa Phát Group (HPG), Masan Group (MSN), FPT Corporation (FPT), Vietjet Air (VJC), Vinamilk (VNM) and Mobile World (MWG) are following an uptrend and could possibly support the market. — VNS