A factory of Hoà Phát Group (HPG) in Hưng Yên province. HPG lost 2.1 per cent on Monday. — Photo Hoà Phát Group

HÀ NỘI — Shares declined further on Monday amid rising local investors’ profit-taking, but foreign investors took the chance to increase their holdings.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) failed to reach the landmark of 1,010 points, closing afternoon trade at 1,003.08 points, down 0.71 per cent.

The southern market index had gained 2.04 per cent last week.

More than 532.9 million shares were traded on the southern exchange on Monday, worth VNĐ11.3 trillion (US$490.5 million).

Market breadth was negative with 247 decliners and 182 gainers.

Foreign investors net bought VNĐ138.47 billion on HOSE, including FUEVFVND with VNĐ308.7 billion, Đông Hải Joint Stock Company of Bentre (DHC) with VNĐ49.6 billion and Vincom Retail (VRE) with VNĐ36.6 billion.

“The VN-Index had a correction session after a series of consecutive gains and has now moved back to around 1,003 points,” said BIDV Securities Co.

“Market breadth turned negative and liquidity increased compared to the previous session, showing that profit-taking pressure is getting stronger.

“According to our assessment, VN-Index will challenge the threshold of 1,000 points again in the next sessions,” the company said.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and liquidity on HoSE, declined 0.54 per cent to end Monday at 965.89 points.

In the VN-30 basket, 20 stocks dropped while nine increased.

The market could not sustain the morning rise as many heavyweight stocks declined toward the end of the session, such as The Vietnam Rubber Group - Joint Stock Company (GVR), decreasing 2.4 per cent, Hoà Phát Group (HPG), declining 2.1 per cent, Masan Group (MSN), dropping 2 per cent, Bank for Investment and Development (BID), losing 1.8 per cent, Vietcombank (VCB), decreasing 1.6 per cent and Vinamilk (VNM), losing 1.5 per cent.

As many as 20 out of 25 sectors on the stock market lost ground, including energy, banking, seafood processing, construction materials, plastics and chemical production, wholesale, insurance, securities, healthcare, information and technology, food and beverage, and real estate.

Their indices declined between 0.4 per cent and 1.8 per cent, according to data of vietstock.vn.

Meanwhile, retail and construction were among the gainers, rising 0.39 and 0.33 per cent, respectively.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.31 per cent to close Monday at 147.70 points.

The northern market index had gained 0.65 per cent last week.

More than 70 million shares were traded on the exchange, worth VNĐ1.2 trillion. — VNS