This is the lowest point of VN-Index since mid-February. The index represents stocks listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE), which accounts for around 90 percent market cap of all listed stocks in Vietnam. 

The VN30-Index, which represents the 30 largest cap stocks in the market, also fell hard, down 17 points (1.86 percent) to 878 points.

In Hanoi, the HXN-Index (Vietnam’s other main bourse) and UPCOM-Index (unlisted public companies trading shares) decreased by 1.36 percent and 0.88 percent respectively.

Although the VN-Index was able to recover slightly after dropping 20 points at 2 p.m., it still closed with 240 stocks down, equivalent to 70 percent of total trading stocks. In the VN30 basket in particular, there were only 2 gainers as opposed to 28 losers.

GAS shares of PetroVietnam Gas Corporation, Vietnam’s biggest listed energy firm, led the market’s downward trend, dropping 4.6 percent, followed by SAB shares of Vietnam’s biggest brewer Sabeco (down 3.2 percent), and MWG of electronics retailer giant Mobile World Group (down 2.1 percent).

Stocks in banking, energy and real estate sectors also fell, for the most part, with the exception being stocks in the textile and seafood sectors. TCM shares of textiles corporation Thanh Cong Group and ANV shares of seafood producer Navicorp rose an impressive 3 percent each.

Stock markets across Asia have not fared any better. According to Bloomberg, most of China's stock indexes dropped sharply by more than 5 percent after Monday’s session, as did stock markets in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, which experienced falls of between 1-3 percent.

On Sunday evening, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that he would raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, because talks on a US-China trade deal were moving "too slowly".

He said tariffs of 10 percent on certain goods would rise to 25 percent Friday, and $325 billion of untaxed goods could face 25 percent duties "shortly".