Shares slide after brief rebound

Shares slide after brief rebound

Share prices at the Vietnamese stock markets retreated again yesterday after rebounding on Thursday.

The decline took place following the State Bank of Viet Nam's official announcement of the issuance of Circular 36, on credit institutions' capital adequacy ratio, early yesterday morning. Speculations about the circular's contents began spreading several days before.

According to the circular, commercial banks shall not offer securities loans exceeding five per cent of charter capital while banks with non-performing loans of more than three per cent shall not execute securities loans.

However, many analysts believed this was not the cause of yesterday's decline. They explained that the new regulation would make the financial system healthier while allowing money to flow into the market.

At the HCM City Stock Exchange, the VN-Index lost by 0.89 per cent to 588.03 points after rising at the same speed on Thursday.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the 30 largest blue chips, also slid by 0.8 per cent to 623.74 points.

Losers outnumbered gainers by 23 to five. The shares with the deepest declines, from two to 5.5 per cent, included commercial baker Kinh Do, PetroVietnam Drilling Services, HCM City Securities and Saigon Securities.

In contrast, private equity group Masan topped all gainers with 1.9 per cent.

Total value and volume of transactions on the bourse reached VND2.7 trillion (US$127.3 million) and 160.1 million shares.

At the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index declined by 1.43 per cent, closing at 89.14 points. The HNX30 Index finished the session at 180.28 points, a 1.52-per cent fall.

Trading value and volume slightly increased over the previous session to VND1 trillion ($47.1 million) and nearly 70.2 million shares.

While foreign investors ended as buyers in Ha Noi with a net of VND3.3 billion ($155,600), they ended as sellers with a net of VND6 billion ($283,000) in HCM City.

vir