Total post-tax profit of 72 securities companies reached VND2.14 trillion (US$92 million) in the third quarter of this year, up 59 per cent quarter-on-quarter, according to the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX).

The number of profitable securities companies and value of profits increased over the previous quarter as well as against the same period last year.

The third quarter had 56 profitable securities companies, up by 11 compared with the previous quarter while other 16 securities companies suffered a loss of VND52 billion in total.

The surge in those companies’ profit was mainly due to strong reductions in operating expenses, according to HNX. The total operating expenses of those securities companies in the third quarter was VND3.06 trillion, down 33 per cent quarter on quarter and 6 per cent year-on-year. Cost for production and business dropped by 45 per cent to VND1.83 trillion against the previous quarter.

In the first nine months of this year, the 72 securities companies gained a total post-tax profit of VND9.34 trillion, reported vneconomy.vn.

However, HNX said the 72 securities companies reported a reduction of 8.6 per cent in revenue for the third quarter to VND5.621 trillion.

The revenue from brokerage of securities companies reached VND1.34 trillion, down 28 per cent compared with the previous quarter. The top 20 securities firms had brokerage revenue of VND1.2 trillion, accounting for 90 per cent of the total brokerage revenue of the whole market, down 2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter. — VNS