Market retreats on low demand
By Phuong Thao - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – After two rising sessions, the local market felt the impact of declines in major Asian indices on Tuesday. The VN-Index dropped 4.51 points, or 1.04%, against the previous session to close at 431.08.
The market opened in the red but moved higher before reversing direction and ending the morning session on a weak note. In the afternoon, trading saw another drop to hit the daily low of 430.37 before a modest recovery led to a close just a point above the lows.
On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the market seemed to be more exciting with a 15.8% increase in volume to 68.6 million shares and a 27.7% increase in value to over VND1.1 trillion. However, netting out 15 million shares from put-through trading of MBB worth VND214.7 billion, liquidity on the bourse was almost flat compared to Monday.
Laggards outnumbered advancers by more than five-fold at 203 to 38, of which 60 tickers hit limit-down. Blue-chips were weaker across the board led by VCB and BVH while MSN and EIB were rare gainers.
The VN30 Index slid 4.14 points, or 0.81%, to close at 506.67. The decline came mostly from three heavyweights VCB, HPG and OGC, which together erased 1.61 points from the index.
Tan Tao Investment Industry Corporation (ITA) led the market in terms of volume with 2.1 million shares traded while Saigon Securities Inc. (SSI) took the lead in terms of value with VND26 billion.
Foreign investors increased trading and accounted for almost a third of total volume mostly due to a series of mid-sized or large put-through deals. They made up 32.8% and 30.9% of the market’s buying and selling value respectively.
Viet Capital Securities Co. said investors felt disappointed by the Government gross domestic product growth target of 6-6.5% for next year. They expected a stronger forecast after this year’s slowdown.
“Investors are still on the sidelines, waiting for more Government actions to spur growth and for the June consumer price index. The three bouts of gasoline price cuts in May and early June, in conjunction with falling food prices, are projected to lead to a flat or even negative CPI number compared to May,” the broker said.
The Hanoi market also fell back though prices seemed to have dropped low enough to attract investors. Liquidity decreased 24.7% in value and 25.5% in volume to 35.6 million shares worth VND372 billion.
The HNX-Index lost 0.82 point, or 1.09%, against the session earlier and ended the day at 74.08.
Market breadth was negative with laggards outnumbering advancers by 187 to 52. PVX was the most liquid stock with 3.5 million shares changing hands.