Vietnamese shares drop after two-day rally

Vietnamese shares on October 26 dropped on the two local exchanges, ending a two-day winning streak, led lower by brokerage firms suffering lower third quarter profits.

On the HCM Stock Exchange, the benchmark VN Index fell 0.5 percent to close at 598.61 points and the HNX Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange dropped slightly 0.1 percent to finish at 81.47 points.

The index for brokerage companies was down 0.9 percent as HCM City Securities Corporation (HCM) said on October 26 that quarterly earnings plunge 50 percent. HCM dropped 1.4 percent on October 26 and has fallen 2.1 percent in the last six days.

Over the last two weeks, the 20 biggest companies in the brokerage business reported a net profit of 460 billion VND (20.4 million USD) during the third quarter, down 13 percent from the same period a year ago. Net profit during the first nine months of the year was 1.8 trillion VND (80 million USD), a decrease of 23.6 percent.

In addition, the banking sector index fell 0.7 percent on October 26 after China reduced its lending rate from 4.6 percent to 4.35 percent per year. Meanwhile, the US central bank will consider raising its rates at a meeting on October 27-28.

Those moves may put another pressure on the dong in the near future. On October 26, the US dollar exchange rate rose by between 10 VND and 30 VND at Vietnamese banks.

The biggest listed banks such as Vietcombank (VCB), the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and Vietinbank (CTG) fell 0.4 percent, 1.2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.

Real-estate developers also dropped down a little bit as realty trading in the two biggest markets – Hanoi and HCM City – rose only 3 percent from last month, resulting in 23 decliners against 13 gainers in this sector.

The biggest decliners included Nam Long Investment Corporation (NLG), which dropped 0.9 percent, FLC Group (FLC) and Kinh Bac City Development Share Holding Corporation (KBC), which both fell 1.4 percent.

Property investor Thang Long Investment Group Joint Stock Company (TIG) was the most active stock on the market with nearly 4.6 million shares traded, falling 2.5 percent.

The two local exchanges traded more than 146 million shares with total trading value of 2.5 trillion VND (110.6 million USD), an increase of 5.2 percent compared to last week's trading average.-VNA