By Dzung Trieu law firm

Investors watch stock prices at a securities company. The VN-Index dropped by 11.19 points, or 2.5%, from the session earlier to close at 436.75 on Wednesday - Photo: Minh Khue

 The market opened lower and almost immediately dropped sharply before fluctuating in a narrow range until the end of the morning session. The afternoon trading saw a further drop in prices before a late bounce faltered and the market finally closed at the lows.

On the southern bourse, trading fell 21.8% in volume and 26.9% in value to 66 million shares worth slightly over VND1.1 trillion.

Only 38 stocks gained grounds while 237 stocks declined, including eight stocks going to the ceiling prices and 143 stocks dropping to the floor prices. In terms of the VN-Index, SJS, PVD and HBC made the biggest positive contribution while GAS, VCB, BVH and VIC made the biggest negative contribution.

Hoa Sen Group (HSG) and Saigon Securities Inc. (SSI) were the most active stocks in terms of volume with 1.9 million shares and 1.8 million shares traded respectively. PetroVietnam Gas Corp. (GAS) was the leading ticker in term of value with VND44.1 billion worth of shares traded.

Foreigners were net buyers but they were less active than before, accounting for 11.3% and 7.4% of the market’s buying and selling value respectively.

The Hanoi market lost ground again with turnover slipping to VND569 billion. The HNX-Index plunged 2.85 points, or 3.73%, against the previous session and ended the day at 73.61.

Losers far outnumbered gainers by 251 to 39, of which 12 stocks managed to close at the ceiling prices and 136 others plunged to the floor prices. Foreigners accounted for 5.5% of the buying value and 2.9% of the selling value.

HCMC Securities Corp. said with the petrol price cut not coming until after the market closed, sentiment was jittery from the open. Investors were concerned about possible large sell blocks of GAS coming on to the market and ongoing adjustment of margin trading positions.

“In addition, with volumes falling off steadily, there seems to be a continued outflow of money from the market. We appear to have entered the summer market,” it commented.

“The petrol price decrease was finally announced this afternoon but too late to save on Thursday’s market. While this was priced in already on Monday, we thought given the very poor market on Thursday we might get a short-term bounce on this news tomorrow. However, there is no guarantee of that even with the bears in control for now,” the broker added.

source: saigontimes