Masan products on sale at a supermarket. The company shares ended flat on Monday. - Photo baodautu.vn

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares gained slightly on Monday as previously-hard hit stocks lured purchases amid prolonged foreign net selling on fears about the coronavirus and its economic impact.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange edged up 0.25 per cent to close at 884.43 points.

More than 206.6 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ3.63 trillion (US$157.6 million).

Nearly 174 million shares were traded via order-matching transactions, worth VNĐ2.8 trillion.

The VN-Index lost a total of 5.45 per cent last week, weighed down by worries about a global recession as economies were hit by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Foreign investors net sold a total of VNĐ1.04 trillion worth of local assets last week. They sold a total net value of VNĐ3.08 trillion in February.

Foreign investors offloaded a net value of VNĐ295 billion on the two exchanges on Monday, putting more pressure on the local market.

The net selling was well absorbed by other stocks to boost the benchmark index.

Among the top 10 top sold stocks by foreign investors were large-cap companies Masan (MSN), Vietjet (VJC), Vinamilk (VNM), Vingroup (VIC), Sacombank (STB), Vietinbank (CTG), Vinhomes (VHM) and SSI Securities Corp (SSI).

CTG, SSI and VJC SSI fell between 0.2 per cent and 1 per cent. MSN, VIC and VNM ended flat. Meanwhile, VHM and STB gained 0.1 per cent and 6.5 per cent, respectively.

The large-cap tracker VN30-Index was up 0.41 per cent to end at 835.42 points with an equal market breadth of 13 gaining stocks and 13 losers.

Insurance, pharmaceuticals and health care, agriculture-aquaculture-forestry, and the construction sectors were among badly-performing industries.

Meanwhile, seafood processing, technology, wholesale, mining and energy, and power production buoyed the market.

Problems for the Vietnamese market are foreign investors’ net selling and worries about the heavier impact of COVID-19 on global economic growth, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its daily report.

The market would keep struggling in the coming days to define whether it would go up or down, the company said.

The small rebound on Monday with stable trading liquidity compared to Friday may indicate the market has found its balance point and will recover in the short term, TCSC forecast.

As the VN-Index slipped below 880 points at some point of the day, investors had better opportunities to buy stocks with good prospects, the company said.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index increased by 1 per cent to close at 110.67 points.

The HNX-Index totalled a 1.38 per cent growth last week.

More than 86.6 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ941.6 billion. – VNS