Stocks open week in the red
By Phuong Thao - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – Despite improvement in liquidity, the local market extended its loss to the third straight session on Monday as stocks for the most parts declined on strong selling pressure. The VN-Index dropped 3.05 points, or 0.71%, against the previous session to close at 424.12.
The market opened just in the black but after hitting a high of 429.81 points, it fell back into negative territory by the end of morning session. In the afternoon, the market saw a small further drop to the lows before closing less than a point above that.
On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, trading increased 22% in volume and 36% in value to 62.8 million shares worth over VND1 trillion, including VND146 billion worth of 12 million OGC shares traded via put-through.
Laggards far outnumbered advancers by six-fold at 216 to 36, including 13 stocks hitting the ceiling prices and 94 stocks dropping to the floor prices. VIC had an impressive performance by going limit-up and pared losses on the VN-Index by 1.52 points. MSN also contributed 0.36 point to the index.
ITA was the most active stock in terms of volume with more than 2.3 million shares changing hands, followed by ASM, SSI, SAM and STB. Meanwhile, SSI was the value leader at VND33 billion, followed by STB with VND32 billion.
Foreigners were less active although once again they were net buyers by a small but healthy margin, accounting for 10.8% and 5.1% of the market’s buying and selling value respectively.
According to Viet Capital Securities Company, investors were disappointed by macro data. Remittance to HCMC in the first six months of the year fell 21% compared to the same period last year to only US$1.9 billion, raising balance of payment concerns.
In addition, despite inflation continuing to slow down in June, the figure has investors worried about slow demand and sluggish economic growth. Finally, the trade deficit continued to widen to US$685 million year to date from US$535 million in May, stoking fears of elevated demand for the greenback and undermining stability of the dong in the second half of the year, the broker said.
The Hanoi market also tumbled given strong selling pressure towards the end of the day, with the HNX-Index losing 1.51 points, or 2.06%, against the session earlier to 71.8. Liquidity remained low with 42.2 million shares worth VND421 billion changing hands.
Market breadth was negative with losers outnumbering winners by nearly five-fold at 202 to 41. SCR took the lead both in terms of volume and value with 3.9 million shares worth VND50 billion.