Vietnamese shares struggle to rise for second day

Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese shares struggled to stay positive on August 24 while foreign investors’ confidence remained low prior to the US central bank’s meeting.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange edged up 0.2 percent to close at 660.77 points.

The HNX Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange ended almost flat at 83.13 points, slightly up from August 23.

The two local market indices have climbed about 0.5 percent each in the last two sessions.

The stock market was volatile as “large-cap shares were mixed” and “late selling forced the market to grow at a slower pace,” according to Saigon-Hanoi Securities Corp (SHS).

Blue chips that made gains included dairy firm Vinamilk (VNM), steel producer Hoa Sen Group (HSG), information technology firm FPT Corp (FPT) and confectionery KIDO Corp (KDC).

VNM added 1.4 percent, HSG jumped 4.2 percent and FPT edged up 0.7 percent.

KDC advanced 2.7 percent, totaling a two-day jump of nearly 10 percent after the company earlier this week announced it had completed selling the snack business unit for 2 trillion VND (nearly 89 million USD).

TTF surged another 6.5 percent to soar more than one-fifth in the last three trading days after losing about 80 percent of share value within one month.

DRH bounced back strongly by 6.6 percent from a 2.5-week plummet of nearly 70 percent, perhaps on investors’ expectations that the company would restructure its management board at the shareholders’ meeting on August 25.

The banking sector on August 24 was driven up by Vietcombank (VCB), Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) and Vietinbank (CTG). Those stocks were up between 1.2 percent and 1.9 percent.

The energy sector extended losses as oil companies suffered from sliding crude prices.

London-traded Brent crude lost 1.4 percent to trade at 49.28 USD a barrel, down from previous day’s rebound.

Among energy stocks, PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Service Corp (PVD) dropped 1.1 percent and PetroVietnam Technical Services Corp (PVS) fell 0.9 percent.

Steel producer Hoa Phat Group (HPG) ran into profit-taking after rising 2.3 percent in the previous two sessions. HPG on August 24 was down 0.6 percent.

Foreign investors on August 24 remained net sellers with total net sell value of nearly 94 billion VND as they were worried that the US central bank may increase interest rates for the first time since December.

Trading liquidity remained modest with more than 134.7 million shares being exchanged worth 2.78 trillion VND, little changed from previous day’s trading value.-VNA