A male employee monitors share prices on a computer screen at Hochiminh City Securities Corporation

Among the 10 biggest stocks by market capitalization, gas firm GAS and beverage company SAB were the only two gainers. Property firm VIC dipped 1.06% to VND111,800 a share, while its affiliate VHM fell 1.39% to VND92,500. Dairy firm VNM saw a slight fall of 0.07% to VND135,300 per share.

Lender CTG led the top ten list by liquidity, with 2.24 million shares changing hands. It was followed by its fellow TCB with 1.49 million shares traded.

Most blue-chips continued edging down. Only five stocks in the VN30 basket advanced, two others closed almost unchanged, and the remainder ended lower.

The VN-Index lost 6.57 points, or 0.66%, at 981.91. The session had 113 stocks making gains and 183 others dipping. The total volume of shares traded on the HCMC bourse was 159.9 million worth VND3.4 trillion, down 3% and 17.7% versus the day earlier.

The bourse saw 23.4 million shares transacted in block deals, with a total value of over VND610 billion.

KB Securities Vietnam JSC (KBSV) in a recently-released report forecast that the local stock market might bounce back, exceeding 1,000 points at the end of the second quarter, backed by foreign net buying, macro economic stability and the solid performance of enterprises listed on the stock market, reported by vietstock.vn.

In the first quarter of this year, the local stock market ranked second among the six markets in the region, after China, according to KBSV. Meanwhile, it was among the stock markets that steeply declined in the last quarter of 2018.

As for the HNX-Index of the Hanoi Stock Exchange, it failed to cling to its rebound when lender ACB ended lower, and its fellow SHB returned to its reference price at VND7,500 with 2.46 million shares traded.

The index fell by 0.27 points, or 0.25%, to 107.43 points. The northern bourse saw 33.2 million shares changing hands with a total value of VND455 billion, both down over 30% in volume and value against the day before. SGT