Stocks fall again on poor confidence
Stocks fall again on poor confidence
Vietnamese shares extended losses for a fourth session on Friday as investors acted cautiously following the market’s recent downturn.
The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange inched down 0.17 per cent to close at 772.08 points.
The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange dropped 0.11 per cent to end at 100.86 points.
The two indices have respectively lost total 2.6 per cent and 1.5 per cent after the last four sessions.
The last four-day losing streak also pulled the VN Index down 2.1 per cent and the HNX Index down 1 per cent from the previous trading week.
Nearly 224 million shares were traded on both local bourses, worth VND3.74 trillion (US$166.3 million).
The market trading liquidity continued to decline on a daily basis. Friday’s trading figures were down 13 per cent in volume and 3.2 per cent in value from Thursday.
According to FPT Securities (FPTS), the Vietnamese stock market would continue to trade negative despite positive signals of improvement in investor confidence on Thursday.
Poor investor confidence in the stock market was also proved by the movement of one-month VN30 futures contracts when the derivatives market started operating on Thursday, FPTS said.
BIDV Securities Company (BSC) said in its daily report that investors were cautious with the current market trading condition as they did not count too much on the market recovery in the near future.
Poor investor confidence sent 11 of the 20 sector indices on the market to negative territory. The biggest losers among those sector indices were energy, agriculture, insurance and seafood processing.
In addition, total declining stocks on both local exchanges outnumbered gaining ones by 255 to 202, while 131 others finished unchanged.
In the VN30 basket, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest listed companies by market capitalisation, declining stocks were equal to gaining ones.
Among stocks that suffered from poor investor sentiment were brewer Sabeco (SAB), PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), Vietcombank (VCB) and gas station operator Petrolimex (PLX).
On the opposite side, shares of Thanh Thanh Cong Tay Ninh (SBT) jumped 3.1 per cent as a member of the management board registered to buy 14 million shares. SBT had plummeted nearly 30 per cent in the previous six sessions.
SBT had traded negative since some brokerages cut margin lending for Bien Hoa Sugar JSC, the company that will be delisted from the southern trading bourse to merge with SBT, making investors worry about their investment in SBT shares could be affected once the merger is completed.
On the derivatives market, the futures contracts VN30F1708 and VN30F1709 fell to 745.70 points each from 745.90 points and 749.10 points, respectively. Meanwhile, the futures contracts VN30F1712 and VN30F1803 were up to 756 and 760 points from 752.30 points and 757.80 points. 615 futures contracts were traded on Friday, worth VND46 billion.
The four futures contracts reflect investors’ expectations for the future scores of the underlying asset VN30 Index and they are due on August 17, September 17, December 17 and March 18 next year. The VN30 Index finished Friday at 744.99 points, up 0.21 per cent.
