Vietnam\'s stock market index ends down

Vietnam's stock market index, VN- Index, closed at 393.41 points on Thursday, down 5.51 points, or 1. 38 percent, against the previous trading day's closing session. A total of 33.446 million shares worth 541.740 billion Vietnamese dong (VND) (25.98 million U.S. dollars) changed hands at the southern Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange. Prices of 70 stocks went up, 153 stocks fell down, while 59 stocks remained unchanged. VN30-Index, the new benchmark index for the southern bourse which has been applied since Feb. 6, 2012 and tracks the 30 leading stocks by both market capitalization and liquidity, closed at 463.63 points, down 5.83 points, or 1.24 percent. A total of 14. 996 million shares worth 320 billion VND (15.34 million U.S. dollars) were traded. HNX-Index, the index of Vietnam's Hanoi Stock Exchange, concluded at 60.32 points, down 0.60 points, or 0.98 percent on Thursday against the previous trading day's closing session.