Poor sentiment weighs on VN stocks

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares traded marginally on Friday as market sentiment was weighed down by the upcoming Tết holiday and the lack of supportive information on the international markets.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange added 0.01 per cent to end at 908.88 points.

The southern market index has gained total 0.26 per cent in the last three trading days and 0.73 per cent over the week.

The HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange was down 0.04 per cent to finish this week at 102.74 points.

The northern market index had increased by total 0.23 per cent in the previous two trading days. It posted a weekly growth rate of 1.16 per cent.

More than 137 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VNĐ2.9 trillion (US$124.9 million).

The market breadth was slightly negative with total 226 declining stocks against total 196 gainers on the two bourses.

By sector, brokerage, insurance, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and consumer staples were the three best-performing industries with their indices gaining between 0.3 per cent and 1.2 per cent.

The brokerage sector was driven by Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), BIDV Securities Corp (BSI), Agribank Securities (AGR) and Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS).

Among large-cap stocks that advanced, budget carrier Vietjet (VJC) jumped 3.8 per cent, totalling a three-day rally of 6.5 per cent.

The company on Thursday announced its total revenue in 2018 rose a quarter to VNĐ52.4 trillion and pre-tax profit reached VNĐ5.83 trillion.

On the opposite side, banks, agriculture firms, rubber and plastic producers, and retailers weighed on the market growth.

In the banking sector, the worst-performing stocks included Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Vietinbank (CTG) and VPBank (VPB).

Of the three bank stocks, CTG dropped 1.2 per cent after having rallied total 12.3 per cent in the previous four trading days while VPB edged down 0.7 per cent from a two-day increase of 2.8 per cent.

According to Bảo Việt Securities Co (BVSC), the stock market continued moving between alternate ups and downs during the day, proving the market was in a stage of high volatility.

Investors were still cautious and unwilling to participate in market trading due to the mixture among groups of stocks and the upcoming Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday, BVSC said in its report. — Khanh