Increase in cash flow helps markets to climb

Investors trace market fluctuations at VNDirect stock trading floor in Ha Noi. — VNS Photo Truong Vi

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The value of negotiated transactions in the HCM City Stock Exchange yesterday, worth VND1.16 trillion (US$55.2 million), accounted for 64 per cent of a total market value of nearly VND1.82 trillion ($86.7 million).

Trading focused on bank shares, however. More than 47.3 million shares of Sacombank (STB), worth over VND1 trillion, changed hands through negotiations.

Meanwhile Eximbank (EIB) saw another 6.5 million shares worth around VND160 billion ($7.6 million) exchanged.

EIB rose 2.7 per cent to VND15,100 a share but STB closed flat at VND21,900.

While there was no special information released about Eximbank in recent days, Sacombank on Tuesday announced that it would pay its first-phase dividend for this year both in cash (6 per cent) and in stocks (14 per cent) by the end of this month.

On the HCM City Stock Exchange, the VN-Index increased 0.24 per cent to close yesterday at 486.22 points, while the VN30 (tracking the top 30 shares by market capitalisation and liquidity) was up 0.51 per cent at 552.53 points.

Property developers were the biggest gainers as four of the top five active shares on the bourse were real estate companies such as Tan Tao Investment Industry (ITA), Hoang Quan Real Estate Corp (HQC), Licogi 16 (LCG) and Kinh Bac City Development (KBC), with each having from 1.4-5.5 million shares traded.

All of these shares posted gains from 5-6.7 per cent.

Investors expected strong cash flow into the stock market after other big banks such as Agribank, Vietinbank and BIDV followed Vietcombank to cut their deposit interest rates to 5-7 per cent per year on all terms, analysts of FPT Securities Co wrote on a report, citing a surge of 55 per cent in trading value yesterday on the HCM City exchange.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index climbed 0.93 per cent to 60.64 points on an improved value of over VND261 billion ($14.4 million).

PetroVietnam Construction (PVX), Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank (SHB) and Sacomreal (SCR) continued to dominate trading here with each code seeing from 4.6-8.6 million shares changing hands. SHB increased by just 1.5 per cent but PVX jumped 5.8 per cent and SCR climbed 4.1 per cent.

According to Nguyen Van Thuan, head of the Finance-Banking Department of HCM City Open University, many investors are awaiting a market recovery and a large amounts of cash would pour into the market if investors find opportunities.

"In the short term, money flow is likely to rise strongly but how long this can last is doubtful," Thuan was quoted as saying in the newspaper Thoi bao ngan hang (Banking Times).

Foreign investors again concluded as net buyers on both exchanges yesterday but their net buys decreased to just VND45.5 billion ($2.2 million) worth of shares. — VNS