Despite the Dow Jones climbing above 10,100 points overnight, trading volumes in national stock exchanges fell to their lowest since the beginning of the year.
Trading volume in HCM City Stock Exchange dropped 27.3 per cent from Thursday to 30.6 million shares for a total value of VND855.5 billion (US$45 million).
Transport Engineering Construction and Business Investment Co No584 (NTB), the most active share, saw 1.33 million shares change hands.
The VN-Index gained only 0.18 per cent, closing at 499.46.
Kimeng Viet Nam Securities analyst Phan Dung Khanh blamed sluggish trading on a wait-and-see whether Dragon Capital would liquidate its Viet Nam Enterprises Investment Ltd Fund (VEIL). The result would come next Monday.
Despite forecasts that the case would have little impact, investors apparently did not agree, Khanh said.
Ha Noi broker Nguyen Viet Ha said: "The fact the index hardly increased, despite favourable global markets, reflects uncertainty."
Ha said the VEIL case was one of the reasons, another was concerns of instability in global markets.
"Some institutional investors have taken a rest to wait for brighter situation."
The HNX-Index rose just 0.40 per cent to 156.21 on trades of 30.4 million shares, valued at VND881.1 billion ($46.3 million). Ha Noi Investment General Corporation (SHN) was the most active with 2 million shares moving.
Foreign trading was still positive in both exchanges with a net volume of 643,820 million shares. The favourite stocks among foreigners were PetroVietnam Finance (PVF) and property trader Kinh Bac Corporation (KBC) in the south and PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS) and EBS in the north.