On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the benchmark VN-Indexlost an accumulative 1.12 percent to close at 582.77 points on July 11.The VN30, a tracker of the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity,also declined 0.62 percent to end at 627.10 points.
The petrolprice hike early last week did not have a negative impact on the market,as expected, but rising profit-taking pressures pushed the market down.
Stockswere under heavy selling pressure, included blue chips, such as MasanGroup (MSN), PV Gas (GAS), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH) and Hoang Anh Gia LaiCo (HAG), along with hot stocks of securities, construction and realestate groups.
Foreign investors also unloaded local shares lastweek. They were responsible for a modest net sell value of 14.3 billionVND (678,000 USD), the first week of net selling after many consecutiveweeks of net buying.
Though liquidity declined in the final sessions, overall market volume increased slightly over the previous week.
Thedaily trading volume rose 3.6 percent, averaging 113 million shares,and fund certificates were worth 1.73 trillion VND (82 million USD) persession.
According to many analysts, this downward correction wasanticipated by investors, as they know the higher the stock indicesclimb, the stronger the selling pressures become.
"The declinewas primarily driven by short-term profit taking and it gave investorsopportunities to restructure their portfolios. However, as foreigninvestors went back to selling shares, it would be more difficult forthe market to recover," said Nguyen Van Quy, analyst of FPT SecuritiesCo.
Quy said if nothing unfortunate happened, downtrends wouldcontinue in the first sessions of this week, and bounce back when theIndex was around 570 points.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, withone rising session during the total five trading days, the HNX-Indexgave up more than 1 percent to end July 11 session at 78.62 points.
Sellingpressure focused on speculative stocks, such as PetroVietnamConstruction Corp (PVX), Sai Gon Thuong Tin Real Estate Co (SCR), KimLong Securities Co (KLS) and Sai Gon Hanoi Securities Co (SHS), as theseshares gained substantial value during the past period.
Also,liquidity dropped as the daily market volume reached nearly 66 millionshares, worth 741.1 billion VND (35.1 million USD), down 8.4 percentfrom the previous week.
Foreign investors unexpectedly became netbuyers here. They picked up combined shares worth 107.2 billion VND(5.1 million USD). Their buys focused on penny stocks such asPetroVietnam Technical Services Corp (PVS), VNDirect Securities Co (VND)and cigarette manufacturer Dabaco Group (DBC).
According toanalysts from SHB Securities Co, the market tends to fluctuate in anarrow range in June and July due to a lack of support informationduring this period.
"The current trend remains upward in theshort term, but the market still needs time to accumulate value for astable rise," they said, noting that the differentiation would happenwhen companies start to release their first-half corporate earningsresults.-VNA