The Dow Jones fell under 10,000 points late last week, fuelling concerns over the EU debt crisis in national stock exchanges, pulling the VN-Index below the psychological 500 mark on Monday.
The index lost ground by 2.64 per cent to close the day at 496.89 points, with 51.62 million shares changing hands in the session valued at VND1.7 trillion (US$89.5 million).
Penny stocks had another rising day, for example Lilama No.10 Company (L10) and Sai Gon Beer Transportation Company (SBC) advanced 4.78 and 4.76 per cent, respectively. Blue chips fell, such as Masan Group (MSN) down 4.72 per cent, property trader Vincom (VIC) down 3.73 per cent. Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), the most active stock of the day with 2.8 million shares, fell 2.45 per cent.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index slid 4.26 per cent to 154.8 points. Value of day's trade was VND1.1 trillion ($57.9 million) on a total volume of 36 million shares.
Ha Tay Pharmaceutical Company (DHT) and Thanh Nam Construction and Investment Company (CSC) saw the highest advances, 6.94 and 6.78 per cent respectively. PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) traded the most at 4.3 million shares.
Nguyen Hac Hai, Head of analysis at Viet Dragon Securities, said the current debt crisis was like a disease, each country had different treatment but they had to test the treatment. During the test, bad news was likely and investor sentiment was correlative.
Nguyen Thanh Binh, a Ha Noi analyst agreed, saying that investors were watching the global situation rather than the local one.
"As a result, they accelerate the sell-off in case the international markets went down, like today."
But when the condition appeared to get better, investors then feared a bull trap. Nguyen Hac Hai, Head of analysis at Viet Dragon Securities, said the current debt crisis was like a disease, each country had different treatment but they had to test the treatment.