Market drops below 400 points

Investors watch stock prices at a securities firm in HCMC. The VN-Index dropped 2.01 points, or 0.5%, against the previous session to close at 399.73 yesterday - Photo: Minh Khue

The market opened slightly in the black and immediately hit the high before falling back again to the daily low of 394.91 points. It then recovered much of the lost ground and finally closed several points higher, but still in the red.

On the southern exchange, liquidity dropped back strongly with value plunging 56% against last Friday’s level to VND427 billion on the volume of 32.9 million shares.

The session saw 77 stocks advancing while 166 stocks fell, including 28 stocks went to the ceiling prices and 49 stocks plunged to the floor prices. Blue-chips lost ground in general although some such as VIC, HPG and STB bucked the trend.

Becamex Infrastructure Development Co. (IJC) turned the most actively traded stock, hitting the ceiling price of VND10,300 on the volume of two million shares, followed by Tan Tao Investment Industry Corporation (ITA), which also closed at its ceiling price of VND8,000 with 1.7 million shares traded.

Foreign participation fell sharply although they were still net buyers, making up 16.5% and 7.6% of the market’s buying and selling value respectively.

Meanwhile, the new VN30 Index also lost 1.94 points, or 0.43%, to close at 447.47 during its first ever session on Tuesday as 18 out of 30 stocks in the VN30 basket closed down.

The Hanoi market fell again while turnover was lower at VND285 billion. The HNX-Index dropped 0.36 point, or 0.58%, against the previous session and ended the day at 61.49.

Only 55 stocks rose while 193 stocks declined, of which 16 stocks went to the ceiling prices and 74 stocks dropped to the floor prices. Foreigners were net buyers as they accounted for 2.6% of the buying value and 0.3% of the selling value.

Viet Capital Securities Co. said both indices are still in a short- as well as medium-term uptrend and exactly following predictions it sent out a week before Tet holidays.

“We still expect the market to trade higher despite oversold short-term indicators as the medium-term technical figures remain strong and the sentiment among international investors seems to improve somewhat,” the broker explained.

“The medium-term target for the VN-Index remains at 425 points. We therefore keep all our open recommendations and lifted the price targets of KLS and DIG to VND10,500 and VND14,000. MSN and HPG are leading our performance table with 27.3% and 22.9% profit increases since the recommendation date,” it added.