HÀ NỘI — Shares fell slightly on Wednesday but liquidity dropped to the lowest in September, showing increasing investor caution about the market outlook.

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index inched down 0.01 per cent to close the day at 1,339.21 points. Meanwhile, the HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange ended down 0.49 per cent at 354.29 points.

Liquidity continued to decline with nearly 804 million shares worth VNĐ21.6 trillion (US$939 million), of which the trading value on HCM City’s bourse fell to VNĐ17.2 trillion, the lowest since August 25.

In the meantime, foreign traders returned to be net sellers after a net buying session of VNĐ470 billion on Tuesday. They offloaded shares worth a net value of VNĐ444 billion in three exchanges (including the Unlisted Public Company Market).

 “Low liquidity showed investors’ rising concerns amid negative information,” stock analysts at vietstock.vn said in its daily report.

Data on vietstock.vn showed banking and securities were the main drag with an average decline of around 1 per cent each.

Seven of the top 10 stocks dragging the VN-Index most were banks, including Vietinbank (CTG), Vietcombank (VCB), VPBank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB), Sacombank (STB), VIB (VIB) and BIDV (BID) with CTG leading the losers with a loss of 1.8 per cent.

According to analysts, investors are inclined to hold money instead of chasing short-term movements in the market.

The end of September is also the time to close net asset value (NAV) of the third quarter of financial institutions and this has more or less impact on selling decision of investors.

On the bright side, oil and gas stocks continued to gain thanks to positive information about rising energy demand as well as uptrend in world oil prices. PV Power (POW) jumped 3.87 per cent while PV Gas (GAS) and Petrolimex (PLX) increased 1.8 per cent each.

Other heavyweight gainers which cushioned the market on Wednesday included Masan Group (MSN), up 3.7 per cent; steelmaker Hòa Phát Group (HPG), up 1.3 per cent; and Mobile World Investment (MWG), up 0.9 per cent. VNS