The HCM City Stock Exchange saw a second day of losses yesterday, with the VN-Index losing 2.3 per cent of its value to end the week at 528.49, on a strong wave of profit-taking.

Trades on the day totalled VND3.2 trillion (US$178 million) on a volume of 75 million shares.

Losers outnumbered gainers by 123 to 32, with a number of major blue chips seeing significant declines. Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAG), after 10 consecutive days of gains, hit its floor price, losing VND5,000 per share to close at VND100,000.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange yesterday, the HNX-Index also closed down 1.66 per cent to 166.92. The value of the day’s trades on the northern market reached VND1.39 trillion ($78.2 million) on a volume of 39.6 million shares.

Domestic investors were affected yesterday by news that some foreign funds, including Indochina Capital Viet Nam, were preparing to withdraw investment capital from Viet Nam, said Trong Nghia, an analyst with Thang Long Securities Co.

But in HCM City yesterday, foreign investors overall finished the day as net buyers of 415,900 shares, worth a combined VND64.1 billion ($3.6 million). In Ha Noi, foreign investors were responsible for a net buy of 410,600 shares, worth a total of VND17.6 billion ($989,000).

While analysts were calling it too early to write off the recent upward trend of the VN-Index, a Credit Suite report said it was time to sell Vietnamese shares based on valuation as the price-per-earnings ratios were already high.