Viet Nam’s benchmark VN Index fell for a ninth straight day and the HNX Index dropped for a third session amidst lack of market information and negative movements of global markets.
The benchmark VN Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange lost 1.17 per cent to close at 897.94 points. It has fallen total nearly 6.6 per cent in the last nine consecutive days since December 13.
The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange was down 0.88 per cent to end at 102.44 points, totalling a three-day decline of nearly 2 per cent.
The northern market index is undergoing a short-term downtrend as it has decreased by total 4.86 per cent since November 13.
According to Artex Securities JSC, the Vietnamese stock market continued to be weighed down by negative sentiment, which came after global stock markets, including the US, moved down on Christmas Day.
The Dow Jones is in a long-term downtrend and there is a good chance it would fall to lower supportive ranges. Meanwhile, global markets’ trading activities have been modest in recent days due to the year-end holidays.
“The unpredictability of global markets will have further impacts on domestic stocks,” the company said in its daily report.
A massive sell-off pulled the benchmark VN Index down as much as 2.9 per cent before bouncing back and narrowing its loss on bottom-purchasing power.
Only two sector indices of the total 20 advanced, which were insurance-finance and agriculture-fishery-forestry. Meanwhile, the other 18 sector indices ended in negative territory, data on vietstock.vn showed.
The downturn of the stock market was seen in the underperformance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation in the VN30 basket.
The large-cap basket VN30 Index dropped 0.91 per cent to end the day at 865.69 points with 23 of the 30 stocks in the basket falling.
Among those large-cap decliners were Binh Minh Plastic (BMP), VPBank (VPB), MBBank (MBB), logistics firm Gemadept (GMD), PetroVietnam Gas (GAS) and petrol firm Petrolimex (PLX).
But a positive signal appeared when the benchmark index fell back to the 880-point range as investors tried to scoop stocks up on expectations the recent downtrend had put stocks at more attractive price levels, Artex Securities said.
The rise of bottom-fishing power helped push market trading liquidity up with nearly 307 million shares traded, worth VND6.22 trillion (US$273 million).
However, investors were mostly cautious and attempted to increase selling whenever stocks showed signs of rising, thus proving market sentiment was weak during the year-end period, the brokerage said.
According to Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities JSC (SHS), the VN Index and the HNX Index may have a temporary recovery session on Wednesday.
“The supportive thresholds for the VN Index (880 points) and HNX Index (101 points) were secured,” and these would be very important milestones for the two indices because they may end the year much lower if these two thresholds are breached in coming sessions, SHS said. – VNS