A BIDV office. The bank shares lost 2.7 per cent on Monday. — Photo vietnambiz.vn

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares tumbled on Monday under heavy selling pressure that hit banking, technology and other key sectors.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange plunged 1.18 per cent to end at 959.31 points.

The VN-Index lost a total of 0.72 per cent last week.

Nearly 211 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ4.5 trillion (US$194 million).

The market was dragged down by banking, technology, mining and petroleum, as well as food and beverage sectors.

The four industry indices dropped between 2.1 per cent and 3.0 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The banking sector index lost 2.4 per cent on Monday.

The sharp fall of the Vietnamese stock market was surprising amid strong gains of other markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

Reports have shown Chinese, Japanese and South Korean economies improved in November after underperforming because of pressure from the US-China trade war.

The stock market ended in negative territory at the last minutes of the day as banks were hit by selling pressure, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its daily report.

Investors were not ready to absorb the massive amount of sell-off despite no bad news about the Vietnamese economy, TCSC said.

Technically, Monday’s fall indicated the VN-Index would have to withstand pressure in the next trading days and the 940 point level may be its short-term support, the company said.

Among listed banks on the southern market, Vietcombank (VCB) lost 2.1 per cent and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) slumped 2.7 per cent.

Other banks like Military Bank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB) and HDBank (HDB) lost between 3.2 per cent and 3.6 per cent.

Large-cap stocks were also brought down.

The large-cap VN30-Index shed 1.39 per cent to close at 875.10 points.

In the VN30 basket, 25 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity declined while only four increased.

Selling also focused on mid-cap and small-cap stocks, pulling VNMID-Index and VNSML-Index down 0.89 per cent and 0.83 per cent.

It was a bad signal for the market, especially when the benchmark VN-Index and VN30-Index lost their support levels of 970 points and 885 points, Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities Co (SHS) said in a note.

The VN-Index would likely fall deeper on Tuesday and there was no chance for a technical recovery, SHS added.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index dropped 1.56 per cent to end at 100.90 points.

The northern market index was down total 0.57 per cent last week.

More than 26 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ333.7 billion. — VNS