The index stayed in the green throughout the day but selling pressure pulled it down marginally in the last minutes.

Trading value on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the index is based, shot up nearly 18 percent to VND22.11 trillion ($976 million).

The 1,400-point resistance seems to be a cause of uncertainty for investors.

Brokerage Petrovietnam Securities Incorporated had recently forecast that VN-Index could either exceed July's historic 1,427 points or drop to the 1,310–1,370 range in the remaining months this year.

The VN30 basket, comprising the 30 largest capped stocks, saw 15 tickers in the red Thursday, led by VHM of real estate giant Vinhomes down 1.4 percent.

The ticker has been on a downward trend since Aug. 13. This was its third straight session in the red.

Two banking tickers dropped 0.9 percent: ACB of Asia Commercial Bank and BID of state-owned lender BIDV.

MSN of conglomerate Masan Group lost 0.7 percent, while FPT of IT giant FPT Corporation fell 0.6 percent.

On the other side, PDR of Phat Dat Real Estate Development gained 2.6 percent to the highest since Aug. 9.

GVR of Vietnam Rubber Group rose 2.4 percent to the highest in over a month.

Other gainers included HDB of HDBank and VRE of retail real estate arm Vincom Retail, both climbing by 1 percent.

Foreign investors were net sellers for the third session to the tune of VND645 billion, highest since Sep. 17.

They focused on selling HPG of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group, and VND of brokerage VNDirect.

The HNX-Index for stocks on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, home to mid and small caps, rose 1.45 percent, while the UPCoM-Index for the Unlisted Public Companies Market gained 0.51 percent.