Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index closed down 0.85 percent Friday, the lowest in a month.
It ended the day at 952.04 points, down 8.21 points.
The VN30-Index, representing the 30 largest stocks in terms of capitalization, fell by 10.11 points, or 1.09 percent, to 918.79 points.
On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), 193 stocks ended in the red and 104 in the green. On the VN30-Index, 25 out of 30 stocks fell.
Bank stocks led the fall. Vietnam’s second largest lender by assets, Vietinbank, saw its CTG shares drop by almost 3.5 percent in value as investors sold large volumes early in the afternoon.
Shares of Vietnam’s biggest bank by assets, BIDV (BID), dropped 1.17 percent, while those of Vietcombank (VCB), the third largest bank by assets, fell 1.91 percent.
Most blue chips also fell. Shares of food company Masan (MSN) went down 1.84 percent, that of budget airline Vietjet (VJC) decreased 1.16 percent, and leading mobile phone retailer Mobile World (MWG) lost 1.24 percent.
Among the blue chips that managed to stay in the green, the country’s largest brewer, Sabeco (SAB), saw its shares increase 0.08 percent and that of construction firm Coteccons (CTD) by 1.32 percent.
Both the HNX-Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange and the UPCoM-Index for unlisted public companies ended down, by 0.61 and 0.75 percent respectively.
Total transaction value in the local stock markets reached VND6 trillion ($255.7 million), with HoSE contributing VND4.7 trillion ($200.3 million) on Friday.