Following the global decline, the local market on Wednesday erased the last two days’ gain as it suffered heavy loss on low liquidity. Ending the day, the VN-Index shed six points, or 1.35%, from the session earlier to close at 439.77.
Turnover on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange continued to slump 15.3% in volume and 21.5% in value to 50.7 million shares worth VND652.5 billion, the lowest level since the middle of February.
The market opened almost flat and fluctuated around Tuesday’s closing level before falling back during the morning session. The afternoon session saw a further drop of several points to hit a daily low of 439.27 before a brief rebound and then another drop brought the index back almost to the lows.
Decliners outnumbered advancers by nearly threefold, of which MSN, VIC and VNM together removed 3.48 points from the market. Meanwhile, the VN30 Index slid 5.49 points to 500.28 with only two tickers advancing in the basket.
Sacom Development and Investment Corporation (SAM) turned the most active stock for liquidity, gaining 3.2% from the day earlier to VND6,300 per share on the volume of 2.9 million shares, followed by Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE), which rose 1.3% to VND14,700 with 2.5 million shares traded.
Foreigners were again inactive although still net buyers. They accounted for 11.7% and 6.9% of the market’s buying and selling value respectively.
The Hanoi market also dropped back although turnover improved 5% to VND655 billion due to heavy trading of HBB. The HNX-Index sank 1.24 points, or 1.66%, against the previous session and ended the day at 73.25.
Viet Capital Securities Co. said investors were cautious on the Circular 226 governing financial safety for securities companies. Accordingly, the State Securities Commission (SSC) will use the CAR (capital adequacy ratio) to benchmark securities companies’ operations and those failing to meet the required ratio will be put under supervision.
“The SSC has announced most brokerages have passed the test but investors remain concerned that the SSC monthly oversight will reduce margin lending. We believe the impact will be contained to small and weak brokerages and will have minimal overall impact on the market,” it said.
“We are still in earnings season with lots of upcoming annual general meetings and first quarter business results due soon. Many companies so far are setting conservative targets and we expect the markets to move sideways for now unless macro numbers, which are not due for another two or three weeks, bring about big surprises,” the broker added.
The Saigon Times Daily
