Market volatile despite recovery

Hanoi (VNA) - Financial stocks’ strong recovery lifted both local exchanges on December 14, but the market’s short-term prospects remained gloomy following the outflow of money.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 1.24 percent to close at 935.85 points, rebounding from its 0.31 percent loss on December 13.

The HNX Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange advanced 0.92 percent to end at 111.47 points. The northern market index also bounced back from a four-day decline of 3.5 percent.

More than 217.4 million shares were traded on both local exchanges, worth 4.67 trillion VND (207.5 million USD).

Trading figures on December 15 posted an increase of 1.1 percent in volume and a slight drop in value compared to the previous session.
Market trading condition was positive as the number of gaining stocks was almost double that of losing stocks, 306 to 157, while 111 others were unchanged.

Of all 20 sectors, financial stocks – led by banks and securities firms – were the best performers in the market. There was also growth among food and beverage producers, property developers and building contractors.

Eight of the 10 bank stocks on both local exchanges advanced, lifting the banking sector index by 3.1 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.
Among them, Vietinbank (CTG) posted the highest growth rate of 5.5 percent, followed by Sacombank (STB), MBBank (MBB) and Vietcombank (VCB).

Bank stocks had performed poorly in the past two weeks. CTG had lost 14.5 percent since it touched its record high of 24,400 VND on November 30 while VCB had declined by 9.3 percent from its all-time peak of 48,500 VND.

The best performers among securities shares were Saigon-Hanoi Securities (SHS), FPT Securities (FTS), Viet Dragon Securities (VDS) and VNDirect Securities (VND).

Other gaining stocks included digital retailer Mobile World (MWG), dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), food and beverage Masan (MSN), marble producer Vicostone (VCS) and road contractor Tasco JSC (HUT).

Energy firms and Vietnam’s largest brewer Sabeco shares were among those that suffered from profit-taking.

PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD) and PetroVietnam Gas (GAS) lost 0.9 percent each, while PetroVietnam Coating (PVB) fell 1.2 percent.

Shares of brewer Sabeco (SAB) dropped 1.6 percent after having gained a total of 7.2 percent in the previous two sessions, indicating that investors were doubtful about Thai Beverage’s interest in buying the company’s stake at its upcoming share sale, Viet Dragon Securities (VDSC) said in a note.

In general, December 15’s recovery was not enough to confirm the stock market has returned to its upward trend, as a significant amount of money was being drawn out of the market on margin calls, confirmed by the modest trading liquidity on Thursday, VDSC said.

“It means the investment flow that had continuously helped the benchmark VN Index set up its fresh 10-year highs will not return in the near future during the year-end period,” the note said.-VNA