Staff at a branch of Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MBB). MBB lost 2 per cent on Monday. Photo courtesy of MBB

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares struggled on Monday as large-caps stocks simultaneously dropped putting negative pressure on the market.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange lost 0.19 per cent to end the trading session at 1,191.94 points.

More than 747.4 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ17 trillion (US$733.5 million).

Market breadth was neutral with 273 gainers and 201 decliners.

The large-cap tracker VN30-Index was down 0.75 per cent to 1,173.34 points.

Nineteen of the 30 large-cap stocks in the VN30 basket decreased while eleven climbed.

Leading the downtrend were the banking codes of Eximbank (EIB), Sacombank (STB), HDBank (HDB), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB) and Military Bank (MBB) with the same drop of more than 2 per cent.

Techcombank (TCB), SSI Securities Inc (SSI), Novaland (NVL), Mobile World Group (MWG), PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS) and Khang Điền House (KDH) suffered losses of more than 1 per cent.

On the other side, FLC Faros Construction Joint Stock Company (ROS) was the strongest gainer with 7 per cent increase, Thành Thành Công - Biên Hòa JSC (SBT) also rebounded more than 5 per cent, PVPower (POW) and Masan Group (MSN) both advanced 2 per cent, Vincom Retail (VRE) and Phú Nhuận Jelwery (PNJ) were up 1 per cent.

“At the beginning of the session, the VN-Index rose quickly above 1,200 points, but profit-taking pressure gradually reduced its uptrend. The Index still ended the session above 1,190 points," said BIDV Securities Co.

“Foreign investors continued to be net sellers on both exchanges, the HoSE and HNX. Besides, market breadth turned sideways and the liquidity was not much different from the previous session. According to our assessment, the VN-Index may experience declines after a long period of large increases this week,” it said.

Foreign investors net sold VNĐ557.92 billion on HOSE, including Hoà Phát Group (HPG) with VNĐ371.1 billion, SSI Securities Co (SSI) with VNĐ78.5 billion and Vinhomes (VHM) with VNĐ60.8 billion. They were net sellers on the HNX with a value of VNĐ43.74 billion.

Ten out of 25 sector indices on the stock market lost ground, including insurance, retail, energy, securities, IT, banking, agriculture and logistics.

On the opposite side, gainers were food and beverage, rubber production, seafood processing, wholesale, real estate, healthcare, construction materials and construction.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index rose 2.24 per cent to close Monday at 230.50 points.

More than 158 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VNĐ2.4 trillion. — VNS