Market down on fragile confidence

Shares declined on Tuesday after a brief recovery in the previous session when a number of heavyweight shares sank into the red on fragile investor confidence.– Photo zing.vn

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange went up 0.66 per cent to close at 771.06 points. The southern market index increased 0.53 per cent on Monday.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was down 0.2 per cent to end at 101.3 points. The northern market index dropped 0.64 per cent in the previous session.

The slump of large-cap stocks in the main bourse in HCM City negatively affected investor sentiment. Two-thirds of the top 30 largest shares by market value and liquidity on the HCM Stock Exchange lost value while only ten advanced.

Major market support such as banks, food-beverage, real estate and construction companies all tumbled.

Real estate firms recorded the biggest loss yesterday with an average decrease of 1.52 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed, with big names including VinGroup (VIC), Kinh Bac City Development (KBC), FLC Group (FLC), Phat Dat Real Estate Development (PRD) and Coteccons Construction (CTD).

Seven of nine listed lenders on the two exchanges slipped while only one picked up. The four largest banks by market value – Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG), BIDV (BID) and Military Bank (MBB) – fell between 0.9 per cent and 2.4 per cent each.

“Monday’s recovery with low liquidity was not a reliable signal that the market has returned to the uptrend,” Tran Duc Anh, a stock analyst at Bao Viet Securities Co, wrote in a note and predicted the market would continue to fluctuate in the coming session.

According to Vietnam Investment Securities Company (IVS), the market was still suspicious with investors likely reacting negatively to sensitive information more than to positive information.

Investors will likely employ the strategy of buying and selling stocks quickly so high selling pressure always appears, IVS wrote in a market report and suggested short-term trading in this period.

Liquidity continued to decline with total market volume and value down 16.8 per cent and 12.5 per cent, respectively from the previous session, reaching 199.2 million shares worth nearly VND3.5 trillion (US$154.2 million) traded in the two markets.

Foreign traders concluded as net sellers on the two exchanges yesterday for a combined value of nearly VND51 billion.