City drops off despite early gains

Stocks failed to sustain gains on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange on July 23 afternoon despite opening high with the benchmark VN-Index down 0.08 percent to close at 597.50 points.
Stocks failed to sustain gains on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange on July 23 afternoon despite opening high with the benchmark VN-Index down 0.08 percent to close at 597.50 points.

The market condition was neutral with advancers equal to decliners by 101, while the remaining 102 codes closed flat.

Blue chips were mixed. Some regained value, including Military Bank (MBB), Vietcombank (VCB), HCM City Infrastructure Investment Co (CII) and PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corp (PVD) but others sank into the red.

The VN30, tracking the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, dropped 0.17 percent to end at 640.84 points.

Trading declined significantly from the previous session. Both market volume and value fell 40 percent to a one-month low, totaling 65.4 million shares. Fund certificates totalled 1.087 trillion VND (51.5 million USD).

There was a sharp decline in FLC Group (FLC) shares with trading volume at 1.7 million shares on July 23. This marked a significant drop compared with the average of 14 million, valued at 173 billion VND (8.2 million USD) per session this month. Trading on FLC accounted for more than 13 percent of total market volume and 10 percent of total market value on the HCM City exchange.

Improved earnings in the second quarter saw telecoms giant Viet-Han Corp (VHG) propelled to the most active code with more than 5 million shares traded before shares tumbled 3.8 percent to close at 10,200 VND per share.

VHG posted a net profit of 24.45 billion VND (1.2 million USD) during the March to June period, more than five times the previous quarter's profit of 4.3 billion VND (205,000 USD), but down 62 percent compared with the same period last year.

According to analysts at FPT Securities Co, interests in equity assets weakened after the primary bourse jumped to a three-month high ahead of the release of July economic data and earnings reports.

By contrast, the HNX-Index had a late recovery, ending up 0.11 percent at 80.34 points.

Trading was sluggish, with market volume down 15 percent to 38.4 million shares, worth nearly 446 billion VND (21.1 million USD), down 20 percent in value against the previous day.

Sai Gon Thuong Tin Real Estate Co (SCR) was the most active code on total trades of nearly 7 million shares traded, sinking 3.33 percent to end at 8,700 VND.

Foreign investors were net buyers on both markets, picking shares worth total 22 billion VND (1 million USD).-VNA

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