Customers execute transactions in a Vietcombank transaction office. The bank's share price plunged nearly 6 per cent today. Photo courtesy of Vietcombank

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam's stock market finished low on Monday before halting for Tết holidays. 

The market benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) posted a loss of nearly 4 per cent, equivalent to 43.73 points, to end Monday at 1,083.18 points, sliding away from the 1,100 points level.

This marked the biggest intra-day loss for the index since its historic loss of over 73 points at the end of January. 

The move was opposite to expectations from analysts who predicted the market would continue last week's advance in the last two trading day before the holiday.

The index climbed 6.65 per cent last week. The market's growth last week was following the trend in other markets around the world, MB Securities JSC said in its daily report. 

On the southern market, 385 stocks declined with 18 stocks hitting the maximum daily loss, while 69 stocks increased. And 24 stocks ended flat. Local investors poured nearly VNĐ13.8 trillion in the market with a trading volume of nearly 590 million shares. 

The market was pressured from losses in big stocks. 

Most large-cap stocks posted poor performance on Monday. The VN30-Index decreased by 3.78 per cent, equivalent to 42.91 points, to 1,092.59 points. Twenty-seven of 30 large-cap basket fell with one stock losing 7 per cent, while only three stocks gained. 

Hoang Huy Investment Financial Services JSC was the one recording the maximum intra-day loss, down 6.87 per cent to VNĐ21,000. 

All sectors including banking, securities, real estate, construction, logistics, production, retail, IT and utilities fell sharply with many big stocks losing more than 3 per cent. 

Top five stocks influencing the market's trend were Vingroup JSC (VIC), down 6.05 per cent, Vietcombank (VCB), down 5.9 per cent, Vinhome JSC (VHM), down 4.63 per cent,  Việt Nam Dairy Products JSC (VNM), down 3.92 per cent, and JSC Bank For Investment And Development of Việt Nam (BID), down 4.07 per cent. 

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HXN), the northern market benchmark HXN-Index declined by 1.38 per cent to 220.76 points, while the HNX30-Index lost nearly 3 per cent to 329.33 points. 

More than 101 million shares were traded on the bourse, worth VNĐ1.57 trillion. 

Foreign investors were also net sellers on the southern bourse, with a net value of over VNĐ1.4 trillion. Meanwhile, they bought a net value of VNĐ21.25 billion on the northern market. — VNS