Stocks tumbled on March 8 following the 10 percent hike in petrol prices the day before setting off new fears of an inflationary spike.

Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai admitted on March 8 that the higher petrol prices would add 0.85 percent to the year's inflation rate.

Closing the day's session, sell pressure continued to send shares down on both exchanges. Both the VN-Index and VN30 on the HCM Stock Exchange finished off by around 3 percent, reaching 431.66 and 489.05 points, respectively.

The value of trades rose 14.3 percent over March 7's level to 1.6 trillion VND (76.2 million USD), while volume fell over 10 percent to about 90.6 million shares.

Over half of the 30 stocks tracked by the VN30 bottomed out, with only three hitting their ceiling prices. All were real estate developers: Sudico (SJS), HCM City infrastructure Investment (CII) and Khang Dien House (KDH).

Trades dried up on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, and the HNX-Index tumbled by nearly 4.3 percent to 71.83 points. Market value declined 17.5 percent, totalling about 908 bilion VND (43.2 million USD) on a volume of 95 million shares.

Habubank (HBB), after several sessions of closing at ceiling prices, retreated by 1.4 percent. However, it remained the most-active share nationwide on a volume of over 13.3 million.

The head of the trading department at Woori Securities Co, Dang Ngoc Hoa, said that, from his personal observations, many investors still have not noticed that trading hours have been extended into the afternoon hours.
"The transactions during the afternoon are mainly done by brokerages on behalf of clients," he said.-VNA