Illustrative Image (Photo:VNA) Vietnamese shares fell on August 31, ending a four-day surge, as a drop in global oil prices undermined the country's energy companies.
The HCM Stock Exchange's benchmark VN-Index lost 1.1 percent to close at 564.75 points and the HNX-Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange was down 1.8 percent to finish at 76.9 points.
Brokerage Saigon-Hanoi Securities (SHS) said that the market pullback would likely continue during this week. Global oil price volatility and key economic data to be announced by the US and China this week will likely impact the Vietnamese stock market in the next three sessions, SHS said.
US crude oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell 1.9 percent on August 31 after jumping 18 percent last week, triggering a loss of 3.7 percent in Petrovietnam Technical Services (PVS) and a 3.2 percent decline in Petrovietnam Drilling & Well Services (PVD).
Energy firms, banks and insurers – the three leading sectors of the market – were the strongest decliners with a decrease of 2.4 percent, 2.2 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively.
Among the nine banks traded on the index, Eximbank (EIB) had the highest drop in share value by decreasing 4.1 percent. In the first half of the year, Eximbank earned a net after-tax profit of 442 billion VND (19.6 million USD), a decrease of 14 percent over last year's figure.
Other banks such as Vietinbank (CTG), Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) and Sacombank (STB) also recorded sharp losses.
Trading on the two exchanges reached more than 172 million shares in volume and 2.7 trillion VND (120.4 million USD) in value on August 31.-VNA
