Investors sought to cash in on last week’s rally on Aug. 17, and heavy profit-taking pulled the VN-Index back down to 500.08, a decline on the day of 1.36 percent.

The value of the day’s trades on the HCM Stock Exchange reached 1.7 trillion VND (97.8 million USD) on a volume of 41.74 million shares, with Sacombank (STB) reserving the position as the most-active share, with 6 million traded.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also dropped 0.87 percent to close on August 17 at 155.82. Trades totalled 653.86 billion VND (36.7 million USD) on a volume of 19.83 million shares, with Kinh Bac Urban Development (KBC) leading the market with a volume of 1.94 million shares.

“Profit-making made a comeback after the strong increase in market turnover last week,” said Nguyen Duy Tan, a broker with a Hanoi-based securities company.

Much of the sales on August 17, Tan noted, concentrated in financial shares like STB, Vietcombank (VCB) and PetroVietnam Finance (PVF), all of which had achieved significant growth last week.

“In addition, these stocks had been bought up by foreign investors, which encouraged domestic investors to try and make a profit off their gains,” Tan said.
“Such an adjustment would have to be seen this week as normal after [last week’s] hot growth, he said.

Foreign investors continued as net buyers on both stock exchanges on Aug. 17, favouring shares of Hoa Phat Group (HPG) and PetroVietnam Tourism&Services (PET) in HCM City and KIBC and animal feed producer Dabaco (DBC) in Hanoi .

Tan noted that strong buys by foreign investors continued to feed substantial growth on the domestic market, even compared to stock markets in other emerging economies.

According to the website www.indexq.org , the Vietnamese market outpaced other markets worldwide last week, gaining 5.48 percent. The runner-up was Venezuela ’s stock market, up 4.54 percent.

Ngo Van Minh from the Sai Gon-Hanoi Fund Management Co, said that market trades this week would be influenced by forthcoming US data on housing, unemployment and the Producer Price Index (PPI).

The two last sessions saw the banking stocks once again dominating market moves, said Minh. If this trend continued this week, and capital continued flowing towards blue chip shares, market indices would continue to see increases.

Minh suggested that 512 points would e a resistance mark for the VN-Index this week./.