Market ignores positive signals

Trades were sluggish during the morning session of May 17 on the HCM Stock Exchange, and the VN-Index tumbled by 1.63 percent to close at the end of afternoon trading at 442.58 points.
Trades were sluggish during the morning session of May 17 on the HCMStock Exchange, and the VN-Index tumbled by 1.63 percent to close at theend of afternoon trading at 442.58 points.

The value oftrades dropped 11.5 percent from the previous day’s level to 1.15trillion VND (54.7 million USD), while volume also fell by 10.2 percentto 77.7 million shares.

The VN30 declined by 1.2 percentto 513.46 points, with two-thirds of the 30 leading shares tracked bythe index retreat, including several top shares, pushing indices down.

Insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), financial conglomerate Ocean Group(OGC) and Tan Tan Investment Group (ITA) bottomed out, whileVietcombank (VCB) tumbled by 4.4 percent, Sacombank (STB) declined by2.8 percent and real estate developer Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) shed 2.4percent.

The head of research and analysis for Kim EngSecurities Co, Michael Kokalari tried to soothe investor worries bygiving a positive outlook on the Vietnamese stock market. Loosermonetary policies can help boost the market going forward, he said,predicting that the market can gain overall by a least 10 percent by theend of the year.

Economist Tran Du Lich pointed to thepositive sign of declining interest rates and predicted that cash flowscan once again pour into the stock market.

On the HanoiStock Exchange on May 17, the HNX-Index also declined by 1.8 percent toclose at 76.15 points. Value totaled 545.9 billion VND (26 million USD)on a volume of 50.8 million shares. VNDirect Securities Co (VND)replaced Habubank (HBB) as the most-active share with 3.7 millionchanging hands.

Foreign investors dumped blue chips on May17, selling a net of 5.7 billion VND (271,400 USD) worth of shares inVietcombank (VCB) alone. However, about 92 percent of foreign investorsales were focused on BVH.-VNA

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