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

After hitting a 32-month peak the previous session, the VN-Index shed 0.83 percent to 1,055.27 points Tuesday. 

The VN-Index had showed signs of gaining even further than the previous session as it fluctuated in and out of the green in the morning, but a flurry of sell orders in the final hour sent it into the red.

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the VN-Index is based, saw 262 stocks lose and 181 stocks gain. However, the market still saw 15 stocks hitting their ceiling prices compared to four that floored.

Total trading volume rose roughly 10 percent over the previous session to VND13.55 trillion ($586 million), and over half of this continued to pour into stocks outside the VN30, a basket of the HoSE’s 30 largest caps.

For the past several years, the VN30 basket typically attracted more trading volume than the rest of the stocks on HoSE combined.

The VN30-Index for the basket this session sank 1.10 percent, with 24 stocks losing and only three gaining.

The biggest losers this session included SAB of major brewer Sabeco, down 2.5 percent, KDH of real estate developer Khang Dien House, 2.1 percent, VNM of dairy giant Vinamilk, 1.9 percent, and HPG of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group, with 1.7 percent.

State-owned banking stocks were the biggest drag on the VN-Index given that they are the biggest capped stocks on the VN30. In this group, VCB of Vietcombank fell 2.1 percent, CTG of VietinBank 1.1 percent, and BID of BIDV 0.9 percent. MBB of mid-sized Military Bank also shed 1.6 percent.

Of private banks, only VPB of VPBank lost 2.1 percent. The rest, HDB of HDBank, EIB of Eximbank, and TCB of Techcombank, lost less than 0.4 percent each. STB of Sacombank kept its opening price.

Oil and gas stocks reversed Monday’s performance as POW of electricity firm PetroVietnam Power went down 2.1 percent, GAS of energy giant PetroVietnam Gas, 1.8 percent, and PLX of gasoline distributor Petrolimex, 1.1 percent.

VJC of budget carrier VietJet Air, a stock affected by the oil and gas sector, slumped 1.6 percent.

VIC of private conglomerate Vingroup, HoSE’s largest cap, dropped 1.7 percent after surging 2 percent the previous session. VHM of its real estate subsidiary Vinhomes was down 1.1 percent, while VRE of its retail arm Vincom Retail edged up 0.3 percent.

In the other direction, NVL of real estate developer Novaland topped gains with 1.7 percent, followed by SSI of brokerage Saigon Securities Inc., with 1.4 percent.

Meanwhile, indices for Vietnam’s second main bourse, home to mid- and smaller- caps, continued their ascent. The Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) and mezzanine bourse Unlisted Public Companies Market (UPCoM) rose 1.29 percent and 0.37 percent, respectively.

Foreign investors continued to be net sellers to the tune of nearly VND825 billion on all three bourses, with the most net offloaded stocks being VNM of Vinamilk and VRE of Vincom Retail.