The securities market on July 29 was affected by steep declines on both stock exchanges.

On the HCM Stock Exchange, the VN-Index shed more than 8 points (1.67 percent) to close at 485.69 points.

Blue chip slumps weighed heavily on the market as many of the top 30 shares by market capitalisation and liquidity slipped by between 1.6 and 3.1 percent. These shares included Masan Group (MSN), REE Corp (REE), Vinamilk (VNM), VinGroup (VIC) and Hoa Phat Group (HPG).

The VN30 was also down 1.37 percent at 537.42 points.

Trading value plunged 34 percent from the previous session, totalling just 685.7 billion VND (32.7 million USD) on a volume of over 32.8 million shares.

Hoang Quan Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate Corp (HQC) was the most active code on the HCM City market with nearly 1.7 million stocks traded at 5,600 VND a share, down 5.1 percent from the July 26 session.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the losses of major shares in the HNX30 basket drove the HNX-Index down 0.9 percent to finish at 60.78 points.

The HNX30, tracking the 30 largest shares, fell by a steeper 1.65 percent to hit 113.02 points. The biggest losers included PetroVietnam Drilling Mud Co (PVC), Sai Gon-Hanoi Bank (SHB), Sacomreal (SCR) and PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) with losses of between 1.2-2.4 percent.

Property developer FLC Group (FLC) was the most active share with 2.5 million shares changing hands at 5,400 VND each.

July 29 marked the first day the Hanoi Stock Exchange extended its trading hours from 2.15pm to 3pm.

The day was also the final trading day of FLC on the Hanoi bourse, as it makes the switch to the HCM City market from July 30.

Foreign investors continued to unload shares in HCM City with a net sell value of 81.6 billion VND (3.9 million USD) but they were net buyers in Hanoi, picking up shares worth 3.7 billion VND (176,000 USD).-VNA