Shares plunge to two-month lows due to massive sell-off
Shares plunge to two-month lows due to massive sell-off
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 Ho Chi 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 VND20.7 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 Viet Nam Ca 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), Tien Phong Bank (TPB), HDBank (HDB), Military Bank (MBB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) and Bank for Investment and Development of Viet 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), Hoang Quan Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate (HQC), Kinh Bac Urban Development Joint Stock Co (KBC), Tan Tao Investment & Industry (ITA), Licogi 16 (LCG) and Sai Gon Thuong Tin 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 Ha Noi 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 VND3.7 trillion.
The market closed Wednesday on the occasion of the Hung Kings Memorial Day.
