Market tumbles below 410 points
By Phuong Thao - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – The local market sharply retreated on weak liquidity after two rising sessions on Monday, with the VN-Index shedding 7.32 points, or 1.76%, against the previous session to close at 408.12.
The market opened in the red and after a short rise, it reversed direction and began to drop steadily to end the morning session on a fairly weak note. In the afternoon, trading saw the index drop further to hit a low of 407.51 before closing just a half point or so above the lows.
As investor sentiment remained slack, the Hochiminh Stock Exchange saw a substantial drop in liquidity, with volume and value contracting 26% and 29.4% against the previous session to 31.9 million shares worth VND444 billion.
Laggards outnumbered advancers by five-fold, with 97 tickers hitting the floor prices. Heavyweights BVH, VCB, VIC and MSN together removed 2.84 points from the index.
Meanwhile, the VN30 Index lost a hefty 8.15 points, or 1.66%, to 482.49 with all of the stocks in the basket in the red.
Ninh Van Bay Real Estate Company (NVT) was the most active stock in terms of volume with 1.9 million shares traded while Sacombank (STB) was the leader for value with VND24 billion.
Foreigners turned net sellers although their participation levels were limited, making up 11.8% and 16.4% of the market’s buying and selling value respectively.
The Hanoi market fell sharply for the second straight session while turnover declined to VND261 billion. The HNX-Index lost 1.47 points, or 2.11%, and ended the day at 68.2.
Only 53 stocks advanced while 194 stocks closed in the red, including 13 stocks going up to the ceiling prices and 86 stocks dropping to the floor prices. Foreigners accounted for just 0.4% of the buying value and 1.5% of the selling value.
HCMC Securities Corp. (HSC) said the markets are running on sentiment and perception. However, they are not always the exact facts. Besides, in a thinly traded summer, this kind of story is more than enough to cause some selling and the absence of much buying activity can have an exaggerated effect on prices.
Last week’s late run has very little behind it which made high beta issues especially those based in the Hanoi market quite vulnerable to sudden selling pressure, HSC commented.
Viet Capital Securities Co. upgraded both indices to short-term ‘neutral’ last Friday but mentioned that one more positive trading day was needed in order to upgrade the short-term ratings back to ‘up’. However, on Monday was a day dominated by the bears.
“We therefore keep our short-term ‘neutral’ rating. The next days will be crucial and a new short-term trend direction, either ‘up’ or ‘down’, will be determined this week,” it said.