There was a ray of hope when the VN-Index rallied at the November 19 morning session, but it didn't last long.

At the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index closed at 588.35 points, retreating by nearly 1 percent. The value of trades slightly increased over that of November 18 to 2.9 trillion VND (136.7 million USD) on a volume of 162.4 million shares.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the bourse's 30 leading stocks in capitalisation and liquidity, continued to lose by 0.67 percent to 623.66 points as losers outnumbered gainers by 23 to 5.

Negotiated trading of Eximbank and Vinamilk shares accounted for more than 30 percent of total market value on November 19. While EIB advanced by 0.87 percent, VNM retreated by 1.94 percent.

At the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also fell by 0.67 percent to 89.64 points. Trading value and volume reached 1.2 trillion VND (56.6 million USD) and 79.8 million shares.

Large-cap stocks on the northern exchange sent the HNX30 Index down by 0.73 percent to 181.52 points.

The most active stock at the Hochiminh Stock Exchange was property developer FLC, which saw more than 30 million shares change hands and increased by 2.5 percent.

In the capital city, retailer KLF Investment also moved upstream to add 4.6 percent and was transacted at a volume of 27.6 million units.

The domestic market has undergone a period of insufficient supportive information. Possibly supportive information to be released soon will be the consumer price index (CPI).

Analysts predicted the CPI in November to increase by a mere 0.1 percent following a series of fuel price reductions.

Since there were no major changes in the economy, the stock market was forecast to remain steady at this level and probably rally slightly by year-end.-VNA