VN-Index reverses course, dropping nearly 40 points in the last minutes

VN-Index reverses course, dropping nearly 40 points in the last minutes

The abrupt changes came amid Vingroup's announcement that it submitted a formal request to the government to retract its investment registration for the North-South high-speed railway project.

The PV DRILLING IX rig has arrived at Vũng Tàu, HCM City, on a specialised transport vessel. Shares of PV Drilling dipped nearly 4.2 per cent on Thursday, weighing on the market's sentiment. — Photo pvdrilling.com.vn

The stock market witnessed an abrupt decline during the final minutes of trading on Thursday, reversing the day's positive trajectory.

Throughout most of the session, the VN-Index on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange (HoSE) showed resilience, trading positively with strong liquidity that suggested continued investor interest.

However, unfavourable news surrounding a range of stocks in the Vin stock group prompted widespread selling as the session drew to a close.

The rapid sell-off occurred particularly in the last minutes of trading, preventing buyers from adequately reacting to defend the index during the closing session.

The benchmark index plummeted 39.97 points, or 2.2 per cent, closing at 1,742.85 points after surpassing the 1,800-point mark for the first time in history earlier.

The southern market experienced a noticeable shift, with 238 stocks declining and only 87 gaining. The pressure was particularly pronounced among large-cap stocks.

The VN30-Index fell even more sharply than the VN-Index itself, losing 46.92 points, or 2.3 per cent, to settle at 1,976 points, reflecting significant drops among blue-chip stocks. The VN30 basket recorded 24 decliners and just six gainers.

Liquidity on HoSE increased slightly from the previous session, reaching over VNĐ26.3 trillion (US$1 billion).

Similarly, the HNX-Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) fell 1.62 points, or 0.6 per cent, to reach 250.98 points. This was its third straight falling day.

The four key stocks from the Vin-family group - Vingroup (VIC), Vinhomes (VHM), Vinpearl (VPL) and Vincom Retail (VRE) - were primarily responsible for the index's decline, collectively causing a loss of over 40 points.

VIC, VHM and VRE all hit their floor prices, while VPL saw a downturn of nearly 3 per cent. This group accounted for a substantial rollback of more than 28 points on the VN-Index.

Notably, VHM was trading at its ceiling price just before the closing session, nearly breaking its previous record of around VNĐ131,000 per share.

The abrupt changes came amid Vingroup's announcement that it submitted a formal request to the government to retract its investment registration for the North-South high-speed railway project.

The significant drop in stock prices resulted in an estimated loss of VNĐ138 trillion in market capitalisation for these four companies within billionaire Phạm Nhật Vượng's ecosystem.

The adverse sentiment extended widely across the market, with 126 stocks losing more than 1 per cent, and for every ten decliners, only 3.7 stocks managed to rise.

Other stocks such as Sacombank (STB), PV Drilling (PVD), Vietcap (VCI) and others also fell by more than 2 per cent, with liquidity exceeding hundreds of billions of VNĐ.

The list of stocks moving against the downward trend was limited, primarily due to low liquidity, with exceptions like VietJet Aviation (VJC), PV Gas (GAS) and BIDV (BID).

Contrasting with the pessimistic sentiment among domestic investors, foreign investors aggressively increased their buying activity on the HoSE, recording a net purchase value of more than VNĐ613.6 billion. This marked the fifth consecutive session of net buying by foreign investors. 

Bizhub