The VN-Index continued its downward spiral Friday, dropping another 3.17 percent of its value to close at 444.16.
Trading volume on the HCM City Stock Exchange improved slightly to 38.13 million shares, worth a combined VND1.38 trillion (US$74.6 million), while Sacombank (STB) led the market with over 4 million shares traded.
Over 9.5 million shares of the Telecommunication Industry Electronics Company (TIE) were listed for the first time yesterday and dropped to the floor of their first-day trading band, declining by 20 percent to a close of VND27,200 ($1.47) per share on a volume of just 38,350 shares.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange yesterday, the HNX-Index also dropped by 3.14 percent to end the day at 139.99.
The volume of trades reached nearly 17.57 million shares, for a total value of VND445.63 billion ($24.1 million).
Asia Commercial Bank reclaimed its position as most-active share on the northern market with a volume of 1.79 million.
Shares declined across the board on both the HCM City and Ha Noi stock exchanges, with 91.8 percent of codes on the southern bourse and 88.1 percent of codes on the northern bourse, dropping yesterday, according to a computation by FPT Securities Company.
What little capital there was flowing into the stock market was mostly concentrated on banking and finance, real estate, retail, and food processing stocks, which together accounted for over half of all market transactions, said Phan Thi Van Ha, chief of analysis for Tan Viet Securities Company.
Foreign investors returned to being net buyers yesterday on the HCM City bourse, responsible for a net volume of 2 million shares, worth a combined VND78 billion ($4.2 million).
They remained net sellers of 385,000 shares on the Ha Noi market, worth a net of VND3.22 billion ($174,054).
"In the current market context, short-term, speculative investors should try to cut their losses, while long-term investors should leave the market alone," advised Bui Duc Thinh, Chief of Analysis for International Royal Securities Company.
"We neither encourage risky investments at the current time nor advise a sell-off in the likelihood that a market recovery would follow the current slump," said one FPT Securities Analyst.