VN stocks retreat from four-day rally

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares corrected from a four-day rally on strong selling pressure as investors attempted to cash out from the surging markets.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange dropped 0.15 per cent to close Friday at 950.89 points.

The southern market index had rallied 4.8 per cent in the previous four trading days, meaning that it increased by a total of 4.64 per cent this week after returning from the week-long Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday, despite Friday’s modest losses.

Nearly 160.7 million shares were traded on the southern bourse on Friday, worth VNĐ3.84 trillion (US$164.7 million).

Trading liquidity declined sharply by 11 per cent in volume and 20 per cent in value from Thursday’s figures.

Large-cap stocks underperformed, dragging the blue-chip VN30 Index down 0.26 per cent to 897.74 points at the end of the day.

Nineteen of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation declined while 10 advanced.

According to BIDV Securities Corp (BSC), Friday marked “a slight correction due to profit-taking factors for a rising week of the VN-Index.”

In addition, the announcement that US President Trump planned to declare a national emergency to raise funds for the southern border wall worried investors, BSC said in its daily report.

“The slight market fall on Friday signalled a downtrend for the VN-Index as buyers seemed to be running out of momentum to keep up with the market rally,” Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its report.

“The market would experience strong fluctuations in the 950-960 point range and it strengthens the chance of a short-term correction for the market.”

Profit-taking affected all 20 sectors on the stock market with nine sector indices ending on a negative note while others gained at a slower pace.

Banks and property developers were among those hit by strong selling pressure. The two sector indices were down 0.2 per cent and 0.6 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

On the southern market, only Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and Sacombank (STB) finished Friday in positive territory.

Other banks such as Vietcombank (VCB), HDBank (HDB), Eximbank (EIB) and TPBank (TPB) declined.

Among declining bank stocks, VCB dropped 1.5 per cent after having risen a total of 6.5 per cent in the previous four days.

The property sector was dragged down by the decline of the large-cap firms Vingroup (VIC), Vincom Retail (VRE) and Vinhomes (VHM), with each falling by between 0.8 and 1.7 per cent.

VIC had gained a total of 14.3 per cent in the first four sessions of the week, while VRE and VHM had advanced total 8.6 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index ended at 106.11 points, almost unchanged from Thursday’s close of 106.12 points.

The northern market index gained 2.7 per cent this week. More than 35 million shares were traded on Friday, worth VNĐ427.4 billion. – Khanh