Photo shows US president Donald Trump making a public speech. Vietnamese shares were hit strongly by panicked investors after Trump said on his Twitter account on Sunday that he will increase tariffs from 10 per cent to 25 per cent on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods. — AFP Photo

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares were unable to resist a massive sell-off in the Asian markets over concerns that US president Donald Trump’s latest comments would spark another round of trade tensions between America and China.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange rolled down 1.66 per cent to close at 957.97 points on Monday.

A similar scenario also occurred on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange as the HNX-Index lost 1.36 per cent to end at 105.42 points.

The VN-Index and the HNX-Index respectively lost total 0.56 per cent and 0.55 per cent in the only two trading days of the previous week.

Worries about the escalation of the US-China trade war arose after Trump on Sunday signalled an increase of tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods this week, from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.

In return, the Chinese government said they would consider cancelling any trade talks with the US following the US president’s statement.

The market breadth was strongly negative with declining numbers dominating gainers by 339 to 130 on both local exchanges.

Nearly 200 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VNĐ3.76 trillion (US$161.8 million).

Heat-ups in bad trade relation between the two largest economies of the world sent Asian stocks deep down on Monday and signalled a bad trading day ahead for European and US markets.

If the US-China trade talks collapse, the global economy may enter a serious growth recession, pulling energy demand down and dragging crude prices along, according to MB Securities JSC (MBS).

In Việt Nam, 21 of the 25 sector indices displayed on the economic and business news site vietstock.vn ended Monday in the negativity.

Among the worst-performing indices were insurance, petroleum, banking, securities, food and drinks, retail and agriculture with losses ranging from 1.5 per cent to 4.4 per cent.

The worst-performing sector was insurance, led by Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH) with a 5 per cent loss. The company shares have erased more than a fifth of market value since April 24.

The market sentiment turned to “panic” from “caution” after investors received the statements from both US and China about their trade relations, Thành Công Securities JSC (TCSC) said in its daily report.

The market condition has worsened as investors are likely to decide to stay completely out of the market at the moment, TCSC said.

Further developments of the US-China trade relations would be the decisive factor in coming days, TCSC said.

But due to lack of supportive information, the Vietnamese stock market would extend its loss from last week even without the US-China trade tension, MBS said.

If the market trading condition remains negative in the next few days and no good news appear, short-term bottom lines for both indices will be broken, MBS added. — VNS