Containers are loaded at Sài Gòn Port in HCM City. Vietnamese shares on Thursday followed a muted global mood on worries about further escalation of trade tensions. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoàng Hùng

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares retreated on Thursday as further tensions between the US and other economies again darkened market sentiment.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange fell 0.34 per cent to close at 948.21 points.

The VN-Index stepped down from a two-day gain of 0.53 per cent.

Vietnamese markets followed a muted global trend as investors fear that trade tensions between the US and Mexico would further dampen economic growth.

Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump on Thursday threatened China with another tariff on at least US$300 billion.

Negative news from international markets was clearly not good for investors in Việt Nam.

“The market opened Thursday with largely-cautious investors and weak purchasing power, and the market was short of motivation," Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its daily report.

Meanwhile, shareholders were trying to offload their holdings, especially from large-cap companies, which sent the market down sharply in the afternoon session, TCSC said.

Increased sales on Thursday showed that investors “were willing to flee the stock market” and some “were not confident enough to buy into local stocks”, the firm added.

Weighing on the market were still the 30 largest companies by value and trading liquidity in the VN30 basket.

The large-cap VN30-Index dropped 0.28 per cent to end at 861.31 points, only five points below the VN30-Index futures that will mature in two weeks.

Half of the 30 stocks in the VN30 basket declined, including steel producer Hòa Phát (HPG), Vietcombank (VCB), Sacombank (STB) and SSI Securities Inc (SSI).

Data on vietstock.vn showed financial-banking, food and beverage, utility, construction and construction materials were among the worst performing sectors.

Those sector indices were down between 0.3 per cent and 3.1 per cent.

On the opposite side, technology, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and rubber were the three best-performing industries with growth ranging from 0.7 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

“The stock market will need some more time to consolidate before making a recovery given the escalation of trade tensions and gloomy outlook for global economic development," TCSC said.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index fell 0.49 per cent to end at 103.03 points.

The northern market index rose 0.47 per cent on Wednesday.

More than 21 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ254 billion. — VNS