HA NOI — While the strike by oil workers in Kuwait and outages in other parts of the world lifted most stocks in Asia, local stocks fell on both bourses this morning.
The drop was attributed to the declines registered amongst oil and gas codes.
At the end of the morning session, the VN-Index lost 2.86 points, or 0.49 per cent, to close at 577 points. The HNX also declined 0.26 points, or 33 per cent, to close at 80 points.
The oil and gas group was the major loser this morning. PetroVietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation (GAS) fell 3.67 per cent to VND44,600, and PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD) fell 4.58 per cent to VND22,900 on the HCM Stock Exchange (HoSE).
Blue chips Vietcombank (VCB), Masan Group (MSN) and FPT Group (FPT) were the exceptions in the session that saw gains. The 1.18 per cent increase for VCB was the main reason why the VN-Index did not fall further.
During the morning session, the five stocks with the highest trading volume on the HoSE were FLC, VHG, KMR, HAG and ATA. Foreign purchasers bought nearly 1.7 million FLC shares, accounting for half the trading volume of the stock.
On the northern bourse, the gains by Asian Commercial Bank (ACB) helped ease losses for the oil and gas indices. The top five stocks trading on the bourse were TVC, SCR, PVX, KLS and KLF. — VNS