Shares last week continued to slide mainly over the slump in blue chips, as investors helped to drive down market liquidity by becoming more cautious following the previous week's decline.

On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index lost by 1.35 percent over the trading session held on September 19 to end at 604.98 points.

The average value and volume of transactions on the bourse reached 2.8 trillion VND (132 million USD) and 140 million shares, declining by 26 percent compared with that of the previous week.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also retreated by 0.38 percent to 88.56 points. The daily trading value averaged 1 trillion VND (47.1 million USD), decreasing by 37.5 percent, on a volume of around 72.5 million shares.

PetroVietnam Gas (GAS) had a major impact on the market's decline in the first three sessions. Other stocks which are also subsidiaries of PetroVietnam alternated in affecting the indices.

Meanwhile, securities and realty shares were actively traded, and this helped to keep the market from declining too quickly.

On September 26, blue chips such as Vingroup (VIC) joined those of Vinamilk (VNM), PetroVietnam Drilling Services (PVD), Masan Group (MSN), Vietcombank (VCB) and the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) among shares that were heavily offloaded, sending the VN-Index to the black.

Although favouring Vietnamese stocks on some trading days, foreign investors concluded the week as net sellers by a margin of 51 billion VND (2.4 million USD).-VNA