A Vietinbank office. The bank shares fell 3.9 per cent on Friday. - Photo vietnamplus.vn

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares declined on Friday as investors looked for profits in large-caps and the banking sector.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange fell 0.54 per cent to end at 933.09 points.

The VN-Index increased by a total of 1.20 per cent in the previous two trading days.

The benchmark dropped a total of 0.46 per cent during the week.

More than 206.7 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth nearly VNĐ4 trillion (US$172.2 million).

Of the total, more than 179.5 million shares were exchanged via order-matching methods, worth VNĐ3.15 trillion.

The market breadth was negative as declining stocks outnumbered gainers by 222 to 130 on the southern bourse.

Vietinbank (CTG), Military Bank (MBB) and Sacombank (STB) were the top three most-active stocks on the southern bourse.

Vietinbank and Military Bank shares lost 3.9 per cent and 2.1 per cent, respectively, while Sacombank shares stood still.

Other bank stocks that decreased were Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Techcombank (TCB), Vietcombank (VCB) and TPBank (TPB).

The banking sector index tumbled 1.9 per cent, according to vietstock.vn.

As a result, bank stocks were the major cause of the market decline as they were hit by profit-taking after rising significantly, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in a note.

Selling pressure also spread to other sectors and pulled the three trackers down. The large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap trackers dropped between 0.29 per cent and 0.75 per cent.

Other declining large-cap stocks included FLC Faros Construction (ROS), tech group FPT (FPT), jewellery retailer PNJ (PNJ), PetroVietnam Power Corp (POW) and construction business Coteccons (CTD).

The 940-945 points zone was clearly challenging for the VN-Index as investors were tempted to offload stocks at this zone, TCSC said.

The benchmark would keep fighting with this resistance zone in the coming days especially when investors were trying to escape from risky assets and shelter in safe havens such as gold and bonds, the company forecast.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 1.36 per cent to end at 108.09 points.

The northern market index rose 0.25 per cent on Thursday.

The HNX-Index totalled a weekly loss of 1.50 per cent after five trading days.

Nearly 37.3 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ415 billion. – VNS