Foreign investors continued as net buyers on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) for the fifth consecutive session to the tune of nearly VND400 billion ($17 million) on Friday.
They mainly net purchased HPG of steel maker Hoa Phat and VND of VNDirect Securities.
The VN-Index, which represents the HoSE, inched down 0.45 points, or 0.04%, to 1,116.97, with 216 tickers losing and only 151 gaining.
The major bourse saw 717 million shares changing hands for over VND13.2 trillion ($560.87 million), a drop of 23% from the previous session.
The VN30 index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest-cap stocks, fell 2.03 points to 1,108.57. Among blue chips, VNM of Vinamilk, SAB of brewer Sabeco, and VIC of Vingroup had the most negative impacts on the VN-Index.
Real estate firms closed in the red, with six stocks hitting their floor prices, including SDU of Song Da Urban Investment Construction & Development JSC, FIT of F.I.T Group, LGL of Long Giang Land, TDH of Thu Duc House, QCG of Quoc Cuong Gia Lai Corp., and VRC of VRC Real Estate and Investment JSC.
Other leading stocks in this group such as VHM of Vinhomes, CEO of CEO Group, VIC of Vingroup, and VRE of Vincom Retail fell sharply, while most mid-caps lost 1-2%.
The banking group also had a bad day, with 16 losers and only six gainers. Meanwhile, securities stocks performed well with VDS of Viet Dragon Securities hitting its ceiling price; SSI of Saigon Securities gaining 1.18%, VND 2.14%, VCI of Viet Capital Securities 0.29%, HCM of Ho Chi Minh City Securities 0.96%, VIX of VIX Securities 0.47%, and FTS of FPT Securities 0.52%.
Tickers of manufacturing, aviation, energy and retail firms had mixed results.
The HNX-Index on the Hanoi bourse inched up 0.62 points to 229.53, while the UpCOM-Index on the unlisted public company market dropped 0.27 points to 84.55.