Domestic shares continued their losing streak on July 13, with the VN-Index losing 2.77 percent to close at 426.67, with little news to support the market and many investors now looking towards Thursday’s listing by VietinBank.

The value of the day’s trades on the HCM Stock Exchange reached 1.1 trillion VND (61.8 million USD) on a volume of 28.5 million shares.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, meanwhile, the HNX-Index also dropped by 3.25 percent to end the day at 141.61 points. Trading value totalled 461.9 billion VND (25.9 million USD) on a volume of 14.1 million shares.

Banking shares continued to attract the heaviest activity on both markets on July 13, as Sacombank (STB) accounted for 21 percent of the volume on the HCM City market, with 6.1 million shares traded, while Sai Gon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) and Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) generated orders for a combined 5.7 million shares, or 40 percent of the volume on the northern exchange.

“The market has not yet set a clear trend for the short term, although recent developments show some signs of the market building up for a new phase of increases,” said the head of VNS Security Co’s analysis department, Pham Thi Le Huong.

Several listed firms in the banking, rubber and construction materials sectors have posted satisfactory second-quarter business results. She said this had to erase investor concerns about more market declines.

Huong said with other earnings reports expected to be positive, and continued net buys by foreign investors, the market was unlikely to slump deeply and the VN-Index was expected to range between 425 and 470 points through the rest of this month.
Saigon Securities Inc said in a report that the market was likely to see insignificant changes this week, suggesting short-term investors balance their cash and share holdings at “safe levels” to preserve capital and wait on more positive market signals.

Bao Viet Securities Co analysts said short-term investors might continue to be challenged by low market volumes this week, but said now was a good time for long-term investors to select shares with “good basic value” at “reasonable prices.”

On the HCM City bourse on July 13, foreign investors finished the day as net buyers of more than a million shares, with a net value of 48.5 billion VND (2.7 million USD) and an overall volume of nearly 2 million shares.

In Hanoi , foreigners were responsible for the trades of 644,500 shares, worth a combined 24 billion VND (1.3 million USD).

On the unlisted public company market, the UpCoM-Index closed at 70.29 after losing 2.98 percent on the day, despite gains in the shares of the Tan Viet, Trang An and APEC securities companies.

About 282,300 shares changed hands for a turnover of 3.5 billion VND (196,600 USD). SME Securities (SME) was the most active, accounting for 40 percent of the volume with about 115,200 shares traded.