An investor looks at stock prices on a laptop at a brokerage in Ho Chi Minh City.
Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran. 

The VN-Index plummeted 3.43 percent, or 38.95 points, to 1,097.17 points Wednesday, with the stock exchange freezing in the afternoon due to order overload. 

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the VN-Index is based, was again a sea of red with 413 stocks losing and 51 stocks gaining.

Total trading volume rose slightly over the previous session, to VND16.78 trillion ($728.22 million), but could have been higher if the HoSE did not experience sporadic halts in trading in the final hour. 

Securities firms had warned the number of inexperienced investors and margin traders trying to ride the VN-Index’s recovery in the past months would overreact when profit-taking pressure appears on the stock market, causing mass selloffs like those seen in the two sessions of the past two weeks.

Foreign investors, however, seem to be taking the opportunity to bottom-fish, scooping up VND15 billion worth of shares on the HoSE, after being net sellers for most sessions in the last month.

Their net buying was focused on four tickers in real estate, namely NVL of Novaland, which rose 0.2 percent, KBC of Kinh Bac City, down 6.9 percent, VHM of Vinhomes, down 4.18 percent, and NLG of Nam Long Investment, up 0.3 percent.

The VN30-Index for the stocks market’s biggest caps shed 3.69 percent, with 27 stocks in the red and only three in the green.

SSI of top brokerage SSI Securities, VRE of mall operator Vincom Retail and SBT of agricultural firm TTC-Sugar all plunged to their floor prices, down 6.9 percent, 6.9 percent and 6.8 percent respectively.

Private banks were again the worst performers, with EIB of Eximbank and VPB of VPBank both down 5.9 percent, HDB of HDBank 4.9 percent, STB of Sacombank 4.7 percent, and TCB of Techcombank with 4.3 percent.

In the public banking sector, MBB of mid-sized Military Bank led losses with 6.3 percent, while Vietnam’s three largest lenders by assets, CTG of VietinBank, VCB of Vietcombank and BID of BIDV were down 5.5 percent, 3.5 percent, and 2.9 percent respectively.

Other major losing stocks included TCH of real estate developer Hoang Huy Group, down 5.3 percent, GAS of energy giant PetroVietnam Gas, with 5.2 percent, and HPG of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group, with 4.7 percent.

In the opposite direction, ROS of construction firm FLC Faros, the least capped on the VN30, continued to top gains with 5.9 percent, followed by MWG of electronics retailer Mobile World, up 1.1 percent, and NVL of Novaland, up 0.2 percent.

Investors also raced to offload stocks on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), home to mid- and smaller-caps, and the Unlisted Public Companies Market (UPCoM), both of which saw their indices plummet by 3.09 percent and 2.56 percent, respectively.