Shares on both national exchanges slumped on July 21, with the financial website stockbiz.vn calling the previous day's rebound merely a technical correction.

On the HCM Stock Exchange, the VN-Index closed down by 0.9 percent to 413.06 points. The value of trades dropped by 13.7 percent from the previous session's level to 345.8 billion VND (16.8 million USD) on a scant volume of only 18.3 million shares. Decliners outnumbered advancers by 141-74.


Of the 10 leading shares by capitalisation, Eximbank (EIB) managed a gain of 2.6 percent and Sacombank (STB) closed unchanged, while all others lost value.

Banking shares, led by EIB and Vietcombank (VCB), rose following the release of information that Japan 's Mizuho Bank would buy a 20 percent stake in VCB. VCB closed up 3.3 percent by the end of the day's trading to 28,500 VND per share.

Software giant FPT tumbled by nearly 2 percent, even after announcing that it saw an 11-percent increase in first-half profit.

Stockbiz.vn said that modest earnings by a majority of listed companies, particularly securities firms, had increased investor wariness.

Some securities companies which managed to be profitable in the first half did so by cutting back their brokerage operations – their core line of business – and depended on revenue from other operations.

"This, in the context of low market value and demand, made investors more pessimistic," added an analyst for StoxPlus, a financial information company.

Real estate service provider Hoang Quan Corp (HQC), along with STB, were the most-active shares, each with about 1.2 million shares changing hands.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index fell by half a per cent to close at 71.35 points. Trades dried up to a total value of only 195.7 billion VND (9.5 million USD), on a volume of just 17.5 million shares. Kim Long Securities Co (KLS) was the most-active share nationwide, with 2.95 million traded./.