Shares declined again on both national stock exchanges on July 4 as investor pessimism grew.

"Investors are extremely pessimistic, since economic data has been more disappointing than was expected," wrote FPT Securities Co analysts on the company's website on July 4. They predicted the market was unlikely to rebound in the near term because of weak cash flows.

On the HCM City Stock Exchange, dull trading in the afternoon erased all of the morning's gains with the VN-Index closing off by another 0.57 percent on the day to 410.73 points. Volume fell by nearly 40 percent from a day earlier to 27.6 million shares, while the value of trades decreased 50 percent to just 355 billion VND (16.9 million USD), the lowest point in the past six months.

Of the 30 leading shares by market capitalisation and liquidity, only five saw gains, driving the VN30 Index down 0.31 percent to 485.42 points. Sacombank (STB) was the most-active share with 1.7 million traded before it closed up by 0.9 percent to VND22,200 per share.

July is usually the weakest month of the year for the market, according to HCM City Securities Co. Since 2001, the VN-Index rose in July in only two years while seeing its biggest monthly losses of the year in other years, with an average loss of 4.4 percent. HCM City Securities Co analysts forecast that shares would continue to suffer in July this year.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange on July 4, the HNX-Index fell 1.63 percent to 68.08 points. Market value was bleak, totalling just nearly 226 billion VND (10.8 million USD), on a volume of only 25 million shares.

Decliners edged advancers by 166-63.

PetroVietnam Construction (PVX), with over 2.9 million shares changing hands, was the most-active code, but PVX plunged by 3.3 percent to close at 8,700 VND.

Foreign investors concluded yesterday as net sellers on the HCM City market, unloading shares worth a net of nearly 4 billion VND (191,000 USD), but they remained net buyers on the Hanoi exchange, picking up shares worth 5 billion VND (238,000 USD).

Through June, the Vietnam Securities Depository Centre reported granting new trading codes this year to 15,787 foreign investors, of which 1,849 were institutional investors and 13,938 were individual investors.-VNA