Blue chips fell further in the afternoon session of March 30, driven by strong foreign sales that had a negative influence on the whole market.

The foreign sectors unloaded shares worth a combined 169 billion VND (nearly 8 million USD) across the southern bourse, of which their net sales of VN30's blue chips made up 55.3 billion VND (2.6 million USD).

According to stock analysts, although net selling by foreigners declined compared with the level on March 30, their trades continued to focus on blue chips. This dampened the psychology of domestic investors.

On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index lost 1.13 percent to close the session at 545.19 points while the VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, dropped 1.1 percent to end at 576.60 points.

A similar trading movement has repeated in recent weeks: rising in the morning with low liquidity, but falling in the afternoon on strong selling.

"It's a change in investor psychology when they cannot withstand high selling pressure and decide to sell off to diminish losses," said analysts on the financial website vietstock.vn.

Both local bourses started the week on green notes, driven by optimistic economic data, particularly the GDP growth of more than 6 percent in the first quarter. However, continued selling pressure weighed the market down towards the end of the day.

Liquidity improved, however, with market volume climbing 20 percent over the previous session, totalling 108.6 million shares, while the value of trades soared 40 percent to reach nearly 2.2 trillion VND (102.8 million USD).

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also edged down 0.98 percent to finish at 81.59 points. Weak trades here dried up liquidity with a total of 42 million shares worth 9515 billion VND (24.1 million USD) being traded by the end of the session, down 20 percent in volume and 10 percent in value compared with the previous session's levels.

Foreign investors also concluded there as net sellers, responsible for a net sell value of nearly 9 billion VND (420,600 USD).-VNA