VN stocks up for sixth straight day

Investors follow stock movements at FPT Securities Company (FPTS) in Han Thuyen Street in Ha Noi.- VNS Photo Truong Vi

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 0.53 per cent to close at 987.36 points to extend its rally for a sixth straight sessions with total growth of 2.7 per cent.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange advanced 0.49 per cent to end at 110.52 points. It inched down 0.03 per cent on Wednesday.

More than 180 million shares were traded on the two local bourses, worth nearly VND4 trillion (US$177.5 million).

Thursday’s trading figures were down 26 per cent in volume and 22 per cent in value from the previous session’s numbers.

Foreign investors net sold VND128.6 billion worth of stocks, which was a big change compared to Wednesday’s net foreign buy value of VND32.2 billion.

Financial-banking, energy and real estate stocks were the main driving factors of the stock market on Thursday.

Among those industries, the insurance sector index jumped 3.2 per cent and the figures for energy, real estate, banking and brokerage sectors were between 0.6 per cent and 1.4 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Mixed performance was seen among the top 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation in the VN30 basket.

The basket’s VN30 Index inched up 0.14 per cent to 960.94 points at the end of the session with 13 gainers, 14 losers and three stocks ending flat.

Among gaining stocks in the VN30 group were property developer Vingroup (VIC) and its sub unit Vincom Retail (VRE), Saigon Securities Inc (SSI) and Vietcombank (VCB).

On the other side, consumer staple firms Kido (KDC) and Masan (MSN), property developer Novaland (NVL) and budget carrier Vietjet (VJC) weighed down the market sentiment.

Despite the benchmark VN-Index’s six-day rally, securities firms were cautious with the market trading conditions in coming sessions.

According to Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities JSC (SHS), falling liquidity is the major problem for the stock market as it indicates investors are quite cautious and the risk of a bull-trap market is rising.

Though the VN-Index was able to advance for a sixth straight session, its intraday growth was narrowed by the increase of selling pressure, SHS said in a note.

Such selling pressure would cause fluctuations for the index during the session, the Ha Noi-based brokerage firm added.

Therefore, the VN-Index is forecast to shake strongly on Friday and it would move sideways between 980 and 990 points, SHS said.