Losses narrow despite Fed interest rate hike

Thursday, Dec 20, 2018 11:57

The sharp fall of the market in recent days, together with the expectation that the Fed’s interest rate hike would affect stock prices, has triggered investors to snap up low-priced stocks, a trend that likely helped limit losses. — Photo ndh.vn

Domestic losses were limited on Thursday morning despite the slump of world stock markets after the US Federal Reserve’s rate increase.

On Wednesday, the Fed raised lending rate rates by 0.25 percentage points as expected, pushing the central bank’s lending rate to a range of 2.25 to 2.50 per cent.

Following the news, the S&P 500 Index lost 1.54 per cent to hit its lowest level since September 2017.

On the Vietnamese market, the VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange edged down just 0.22 per cent to end the morning trading at 917.19 points.

It fell 0.86 per cent to end trading at 919.24 points on Wednesday.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index inched up 0.05 per cent to 104.21 points.

The index fell 0.25 per cent to 104.16 points on Wednesday.

More than 84.3 million shares worth a combined VNĐ1.8 trillion (US$77 million) were traded on the two markets.

The sharp fall of the market in recent days, together with the expectation that the Fed’s interest rate hike would affect stock prices, has triggered investors to snap up low-priced stocks, a trend that likely helped limit losses.

Buying demand pushed up 10 sectors on the stock market, including energy firms, insurance and IT.

However, bluechip stocks were still hit hard. The VN30 Index, which tracks the overall performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation, was down 0.42 per cent to 879.09 points.

Firms that lost value included brewery Sabeco (SAB), real estate developer Vingroup (VIC), Vinhomes (VHM), budget carrier Vietjet (VJC) and dairy firm Vinamilk (VNM).

Afternoon trading starts at 1pm. — VNS

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