A long weekend and a positive message from the State Bank failed to improve sentiment as investors returned to stock trading on local markets on April 13 with market indices and volumes in both HCM City and Hanoi declining.

The increase in the compulsory reserve ratio for foreign currency applied to commercial banks, which took effect on April 13, was unable to boost trading.

On the HCM Stock Exchange, the VN-Index retreated by 0.71 percent from April 8’s close to close at just over 461 points. Trading was sleepy on a modest volume of 26 million shares, worth a combined 519.4 billion VND (24.9 million USD).

Sacombank (STB) claimed the spot as the most-active share and was the only code seeing a trading volume in excess of a million shares, STB closed unchanged at 13,800 VND per share.
Among the 10 leading shares by capitalisation, Vincom (VIC) rose 0.7 percent to 135,000 VND (6.46 USD), while others stalled or plunged, including software producer FPT (FPT) which fell to its floor price of 55,000 VND per share.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index closed down 0.93 percent to 89.42 points. The volume of trades rose 10 percent to 18.7 million shares, worth a total of 278.8 billion VND (13.3 million USD).
Kim Long Securities (KLS) was the most-active share nationwide, with 1.7 million traded, but closed down 1 percent to 9,800 VND per share.

Foreign investors remained net buyers, but with a low combined volume of 487,000 shares on both stock exchanges, worth a net of 22 billion VND (1 million USD)./.