Shares up as US rates unchanged
Shares up as US rates unchanged
Vietnamese shares yesterday rose on both local exchanges, ending a three-day losing streak, after financial firms got a boost from the US central bank's decision not to raise lending interest rates.
The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange jumped 1.5 per cent to close at 605.20 points and the HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange rose 1 per cent to end at 82.01 points.
The financial sector, made up of banks, brokerage firms and insurers, saw gains after the US central bank on Wednesday night decided to keep interest rates unchanged near zero per cent until its December meeting.
The US central bank's decision may put less pressure on the Vietnamese dong and Viet Nam's central bank to depreciate the dong further like it did in August.
The banking industry index was up 1 per cent, the brokerage index jumped 1.9 per cent and the insurer index surged 4 per cent.
The biggest financial stocks, such as Vietcombank (VCB), the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH) and Saigon Securities Incorporate (SSI) increased by 1.3 per cent, 0.8 per cent, 4.4 per cent and 1.7 per cent, respectively.
The energy stock index rose sharply by 0.9 per cent after the US benchmark crude West Texas Intermediate (WTI) surged 6.3 per cent on Wednesday to trade at US$45.94 a barrel and the Brent crude jumped 4.8 per cent to trade at $49.05 a barrel.
Among energy stocks, the biggest winners were Petroleum Equipment Assembly & Metal Structure JSC (PXS), PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS) and Drilling PetroVietnam Mud Drilling JSC (PVC) which jumped about 2 per cent each.
Other energy stocks made smaller gains such as PetroVietnam Gas Corporation (GAS) and PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD) that inched up 0.9 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively.
The market also saw significant improvements in some large stocks such as Vinamilk (VNM) and Vingroup Corporation (VIC).
VNM surged 4.4 per cent after it reported an increase of 55 per cent in quarterly net profit from the same period of last year to VND2.1 trillion ($95 million).
Both local exchanges traded more than 138 million shares, worth VND2.54 trillion ($113 million), a decrease of 6.5 per cent from Wednesday.
