Liquidity soared but the VN-Index still failed to sustain morning gains as sell offs happened across the board on July 28.
On the HCM Stock Exchange, the VN-Index lost 0.63 percent to close the session at 631.47 points. The VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, dropped 0.91 percent to end at 659.60 points.
The market condition was negative as decliners doubled advancers, the worst performance since the beginning of June.
"From this movement in both market breadth and Index, the market is obviously weakening substantially. The growing momentum has faded and widespread declines across the board induced the market's steep fall," analysts on the financial website vietstock.vn commented.
Blue chips had a choppy trading day with many large-cap shares loosing over 2 percent in value, including Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), FLC Group (FLC), Hoa Phat Group (HPG), Sacombank (STB) and PetroVietnam Drilling and Wells Service (PVD).
Confectionery Kinh Do Corp (KDC) was among a few gainers. Its price hit the ceiling price of 50,500 VND (2.32 USD) a share, the highest in the past six months, after the company announced it would pay dividends at a striking rate of 200 percent in cash.
KDC saw its highest trading volume in history on July 28 with more than 8 million shares worth 406 billion VND (18.6 million USD) exchanged. This volume accounted for over 13 percent of the total market volume in HCM City's market on July 28.
In contrast to domestic moves, foreign investors were net sellers, offloading 2.09 million KDC shares, making up 26 percent of this share's activity on July 28.
Overall liquidity rose strongly with 155 million shares worth over 3.2 trillion VND (146.8 million USD) exchanged on July 28, up 25 percent in volume and 20 percent in value against the previous session.
Without especially encouraging news, PetroVietnam Power Nhon Trach 2 (NT2) surprised the market as the most active stock on July 28 with 10.6 million shares traded, rising 5.2 percent to 24,200 VND (1.11 USD) each.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index dropped 1.06 percent to finish the day at 85.58 points as losers also doubled gainers.
Liquidity also improved here with the market volume rising 10 percent to reach 51 million shares worth 648 billion VND (29.7 million USD) by the end of the session.
Speculative stock FLC Joint Venture Global Investment Co (KLF) remained the most active code with 4.3 million shares traded but its price slumped 5 percent to settle at 5,700 VND a share.
Foreign investors increased selling activity on July 28. They were responsible for a net sell value of more than 86 billion VND (nearly 4 million USD) worth of shares in HCM City, up 170.3 percent over July 27. They were also net sellers in Hanoi's market with a net sell of 2.3 billion VND (105,500 USD)./.