Fertiliser products of Petro Việt Nam Cà Mau Fertilizer JSC (DCM) being processed. DCM hit the daily decline line of 7 per cent Thursday. Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

HÀ NỘI — Shares collapsed on Thursday, falling to two-month lows as a series of large-cap stocks plunged to their floor prices, suffering strong selling pressure throughout the trading session.

The market benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) closed Thursday at 1,227.82 points, falling by 3.19 per cent or 40.46 points.

Market breadth was negative as only 80 stocks gained while 365 decreased during the session. Liquidity stayed high with more than 770.4 million shares traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ20.7 trillion (US$898 million).

The VN30-Index dropped 3.13 per cent, or 41.15 points, to finish Thursday's trading at 1,271.53 points. Twenty-eight of the 30 biggest stocks in the VN30 basket decreased while none increased.

Market sentiment worsened on Thursday and investors became more cautious due to massive selling pressure, said financial news website vietstock.vn.

The worst performers were Masan Group (MSN), Vincom Retail (VRE), SSI Securities CO (SSI), Orient Commercial Bank (OCB) and Petro Việt Nam Cà Mau Fertilizer JSC (DCM), which all hit the daily decline limit of 7 per cent.

Banking and securities stocks also sank deeply, including Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB), Tiền Phong Bank (TPB), HDBank (HDB), Military Bank (MBB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) and Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID), SSI Securities (SSI), HCM City Securities (HCM), Vietinbank Securities (CTS), Agribank Securities (AGR) and BIDV Securities (BSI).

Real estate and construction were sold strongly with many stocks falling to the floor prices such as the HCM City Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Company (CII), Dream House Investment Corporation (DRH), Construction firm FECON Corporation (FCN), Hoàng Quân Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate (HQC), Kinh Bắc Urban Development Joint Stock Co (KBC), Tân Tạo Investment & Industry (ITA), Licogi 16 (LCG) and Sài Gòn Thương Tín Real Estate JSC (SCR).

Steel, oil and gas stocks also performed poorly.

On a sector basis, 24 of 25 sectors on the stock market lost ground including wholesale, insurance, real estate, IT, retail, banking, food and beverages, logistics and construction, securities, energy, agriculture, rubber production, seafood processing, construction material and spare parts.

They all decreased between 0.16 and 5.45 per cent.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost by 3.18 per cent to close Thursday at 287.04 points.

Nearly 180.5 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VNĐ3.7 trillion.

The market closed Wednesday on the occasion of the Hùng Kings Memorial Day. VNS