New policies fail to lift shares
New policies fail to lift shares
Several new Government policies, including tax relief for low earners and a new ceiling on deposit interest rates, began from yesterday but shares still took a dive on the country's both stock exchanges.
The threshold for paying income tax has risen from VND4 million (US$190) to VND9 million ($428.5) per month.
The cap on the deposit interest rate will be reduced to 7 per cent.
Despite such supportive policies, the recent downturn on the stock market has made investors extra cautious.
The decline slowed on the HCM City exchange in the afternoon with the benchmark VN-Index sliding just 0.23 per cent to 480.04 points.
The strong recovery of a few heavyweight shares, including Masan Group (MSN) and PV Gas (GAS), cushioned the index fall. Both rose nearly 3 per cent yesterday.
The market condition was still negative, however, as losers outnumbered gainers by 133-72 while 101 codes were unmoved.
The VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares on the bourse, was down by 0.69 per cent to 534.85 points. Trading was the two-month low at 35 million shares, worth nearly VND500 billion ($23.8 million), by the end of the session.
Property giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAG) remained the most active with 2.35 million changing hands for VND20,400 ($0.97) each, down 1.45 per cent from the previous closing price.
What happened on the gold market loomed large on the stock exchange, stock analysts at FPT Securities Co said.
"A sharp drop in bullion prices is forecast to draw a considerable amount of cash from other channels, including equity markets," they said.
Besides, the fresh gasoline price hike last Friday and low manufacturing data hit the stock market, analysts said.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also slipped 0.43 per cent to close at 62.49 points with nearly 16.7 million shares worth just VND130.4 billion ($6.2 million) being traded.
Investment FLC Group was the most heavily traded stock nationwide with over 3.8 million shares changing hands for VND6,400 a share.
Overseas investors were still net sellers on the HCM City market of VND19.2 billion ($914,300) worth of shares, but they were net buyers of about VND8.3 billion ($395,200) worth of shares on the Ha Noi market.
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