Market plunges below 400 points
By Phuong Thao - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC –As profit-taking pressure kept soaring after recent gains, the local market opened the week on Monday with a heavy loss given sharp decline of most blue-chips, dragging the VN-Index down 9.48 points, or 2.34%, against the previous session to close at 395.54.
The market opened lower and subsequently dropped steadily throughout the day with hardly any respite before closing at the lows of the day.
Liquidity on the southern exchange also fell strongly with volume contracting 31% against last Friday to just 34.5 million shares worth VND679 billion.
Only 61 stocks advanced while 192 stocks posted losses, of which 17 stocks went to the ceiling prices and 92 others dropped to the floor prices. Blue-chips fell across the board with only a few rare gainers such as DPM and DPR.
Eximbank (EIB) again was the most actively traded stock but it lost 4.3% against the previous session to VND15,300 per share on the volume of 1.7 million shares. Sacombank (STB) followed, plunging to the floor price of VND20,900 with 1.3 million shares changing hands.
Foreigners were net buyers although they were less active than on Friday. They took 5.3 million shares worth VND99.4 billion and offloaded 2.7 million shares worth VND46.2 billion, making up 14.6% and 6.8% of the market’s buying and selling value respectively.
The Hanoi market also declined sharply while turnover slid back to VND267 billion. The HNX-Index dipped 1.65 points, or 2.63%, from the session earlier to close at 61.04.
Decliners far outnumbered advancers by 202 to 58, including 22 stocks hitting the ceiling prices and 73 stocks dropping to the floor prices. Foreigners were active net buyers as they accounted for 4.2% and 0.5% of the market’s buying and selling value.
Viet Capital Securities Co. said the decline looked like a typical situation where investors had to deliberate whether this was the start of a new short-term downtrend or just a healthy breather within a new medium-term bull market.
“One thing is clear that nervousness is increasing among investors as they might ask themselves if they want to lock in the already decent profits they have made this year,” the stock broker said.
“The VN-Index has only retraced about 23.6% of the previous up move, so we are not yet worried about the correction. We continue to believe that this is a medium-term bull market despite short-term profit taking periods like this one. We took profit in KLS last week, as it was our short-term position but are looking to buy back any of the broker stocks in the next one or two days, depending on if they find grounds at the current levels,” the broker said.