Information of lower petrol prices yesterday afternoon again failed to boost investors' confidence this morning and stocks continued to fall across the two national trading boards.
On the HCM City Stock Exchange, the benchmark VN-Index lost another 0.46 per cent to close the morning's session at 429.17 points on a sluggish value of nearly VND472 billion (US$22.5 million).

Blue chips slumped along with a 0.43 per cent fall of the VN30 Index, computing performance of the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, which stood at 502.54 points by the end of this morning.

Amongst the top 30 shares, only Phu My Fertiliser (DPM) rose 1.2 per cent, Vietcombank (VCB) and Sacombank (STB) both increased 0.3 per cent. Others closed down or remained unchanged.

Decliners outnumbered advancers by 145-36 overall.

Furniture maker Duc Long Gia Lai Group (DLG) again surprised the market by becoming the most active code in the HCM City market with over 1.8 million shares changing hands, but its share price dropped 2.2 per cent to a close of VND9,000 ($0.43) a share.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also gave up another 0.47 per cent to finish this morning at 73.55 points as losers overwhelmed gainers by 144-38.

However, trading value jumped 73 per cent over yesterday morning's level to nearly VND258 billion ($7.1 million) on a total volume of 24.7 million shares.

VNDirect Securities Co (VND) rose to be the most active code this morning with 3 million shares traded, sinking 2.6 per cent to VND11,400 ($0.54) a share.

The afternoon trading session will re-open at 1pm