Vietnamese shares extend losses for third day

Vietnamese shares on October 28 continued losing for a third day, led by financial firms ahead of the US central bank's decision on interest rates.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange lost 0.4 percent to close at 596.24 points and the HNX Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange fell slightly by 0.1 percent to finish at 81.22 points.

The financial sector, with banks, brokerage firms and insurers, was the major factor that dragged the market down.

Insurer index dropped 1.8 percent, bank index fell 1.1 percent and brokerage firm index was down 0.8 percent.

Strong profit-taking activities done by investors also pulled those stocks down, Nguyen Xuan Binh, Deputy Head of Bao Viet Securities Corporation's (BVSC) Market Analysis said, adding that the selling was a normal action as those stocks had increase sharply recently and the market was lacking positive information. Bao Viet Holdings (BVH) had gained 10 percent in five days before starting to fall on October 27.

At the end of the day, the biggest stocks in the financial sector, including Vietcombank (VCB), the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and Saigon Securities Incorporate (SSI) lost 1.1 percent, 1.6 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.

Binh added that the market was also led down by some exporters who may not benefit as much by the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement as previously thought.

Stocks such as Everpia JSC (EVE) lost 3.8 percent, fishery producer Hung Vuong Corporation (HVG) was down 1.9 percent and Century Synthetic Fiber Corporation (STK) dropped 0.6 percent on October 28 – these two stocks have fallen 6 percent and 2.7 percent during the last four days.

Meanwhile, large companies such as Vinamilk (VNM), Ma San Group (MSN) and Kinh Do Corporation (KDC) were flat.

The market will likely continue declining in the next two or three days, Binh said, adding that the benchmark VN Index will probably go down and test resistance at 585-590 points as there was not much positive information at the moment.

Both local markets traded more than 153.7 million shares and 2.72 trillion VND (121 million USD), an increase of 10.3 percent from October 27.-VNA