An employee checking vegetables at a VinCommerce supermarket, owned by Masan Group. The company shares fell nearly 5.3. per cent yesterday. Photo courtesy of Masan

HÀ NỘI — The market ended mixed on Wednesday, as rising selling force triggered losses in many large-cap stocks, especially in manufacturing, real estate and banking sectors. 

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index finished lower but still hovered above the 1,500 point-level. Accordingly, the market benchmark declined 3.08 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 1,522.5 points after gaining nearly 20 points in the opening session of 2022. 

The market's breadth was negative with 221 stocks rising, while 240 stocks dropped. Liquidity increased compared to yesterday as nearly VNĐ33 trillion (US$1.45 billion) was poured into HoSE, equivalent to a trading volume of more than 1 billion shares. 

The index's reversal was due to strong selling pressure that weighed on many large-cap stocks. Of which the 30 biggest stocks tracker VN30-Index fell 12.86 points, or 0.82 per cent, to 1,546.01 points. 

Nineteen stocks in the VN30 basket inched down, while ten stocks climbed with one stock hitting the biggest daily gain. And one stock ended flat. 

Masan Group (MSN) led the downtrend yesterday, down 5.29 per cent. Other stocks that contributed to the fall were Vingroup (VIC), down 0.99 per cent, Vinhomes (VHM), down 1.29 per cent, Vietcombank (VCB), down 1.27 per cent and VPBank (VPB), down 1.53 per cent. 

After opening the first session of the new year on a positive note, big bank stocks witnessed strong correction due to profit-taking activities. MBBank (MBB), HDBank (HDB), Techcombank (TCB), BIDV (BID) and Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) lost at least 0.8 per cent.

However, the losses were capped by gains in some pillar stocks. Accordingly, PV Gas (GAS) was the biggest gainer on Wednesday, boosted by skyrocketing global oil price that hit $80 per barrel on January 4. GAS shares climbed 3.04 per cent. 

Also helping to limit the downtrend, Vincom Retail (VRE),  Development Investment Construction JSC (DIG) and Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR) posted big gains, with VRE and DIG both hitting the maximum daily gain of 7 per cent, while GVR was up more than 2.1 per cent. 

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), meanwhile, still edged up 6.26 points, or 1.32 per cent, to 480.36 points. 

During the session, over 137.6 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth nearly VNĐ4.1 trillion.

On the other hand, foreign investors fled from the market after net selling a value of VNĐ220.77 billion on both main exchanges. Of which, they net sold a value of VNĐ256.48 billion on HoSE, while net bought a value of VNĐ35.71 billion on HNX. VNS