Large cap stocks perform poorly

HÀ NỘI — Shares fell further on the HCM Stock Exchange as large-cap stocks continued performing negatively on poor market sentiment.

The benchmark VN-Index on the southern market lost 0.27 per cent to close at 802.23 points. It was down 0.05 per cent on Friday. The VN-Index had rose as much as 0.45 per cent to reach its intraday high of 808.09 points during Monday’s session.

Nearly 119.5 million shares were traded on the southern exchange, worth VNĐ2.78 trillion (US$123.8 million).

Monday’s trading figures were down 14.3 per cent in volume and 10 per cent in value compared to Friday. These were also the lowest liquidity figures recorded since February 2017.

Large-cap stocks underperformed with the VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest companies by market capitalisation and liquidity, fell 0.25 per cent to 790.70 points.

Seventeen of the 30 largest companies in the VN30 basket declined while 12 others advanced and only one closed flat.

The worst decliners included insurance-finance firm Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH), Thành Thành Công Tây Ninh Sugar Co (SBT), Sacombank (STB) and food producer Kido Group (KDC).

Foreign investors remained net buyers but their net sell value on Monday dropped 5.4 per cent to VNĐ45.8 billion from Friday.

“The first trading session of October was very bad, with liquidity dropping sharply, gainers being outnumbered by losers by nearly a 2:1 ratio and foreign investment being weak,” Vietnam Investment Securities Company (IVS) said in its daily report.

The VN-Index had weakened considerably in the late period of the last three trading sessions and the benchmark is now only two points away from 800 points, IVS said. “If the VN-Index fails to hold onto that level, the stock market will likely go through a hard-correction period.”

However, there is a chance that the VN-Index could move narrowly around the level of 800 points without any positive signals about its future development, the brokerage said. “The market will continue weakening and may extend its correction to the end of the year if demand remains negative,” IVS said.

In addition, the third-quarter earnings reports were unlikely to provide a strong boost for local stocks as investors had already priced in the gains of those stocks based on forecasts and intel sources of higher earnings results, the securities company said.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index inched down 0.13 per cent to end at 107.51 points. It gained 0.2 per cent on Friday. Nearly 52 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VNĐ468.7 billion. — VNS