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Index treads water as investors uncertain
The VN-Index was largely unchanged yesterday, down a mere 0.03 points (or 0.01 per cent) to close at 314.71.
Blue chips like Saigon Securities (SSI), PetroVietnam Finance (PVF) and FPT posed gains, but a number of penny stocks were big losers on the day, including Nam Viet Seafood (NAV), due to the ex-date for dividend payment; Lu Gia Mechanical Electrics (LGC) and Saigon Hotel (SGH).
"The ups-and-downs of market indices is normal since the exchange is now being governed by the global economic turmoil," said Nguyen Huy Duong, an analyst at Hoa Binh Securities.
Investors were also assuming a wait-and-see attitude towards the new taxes on securities trades coming on January 1, causing investors to be cautious about trading now, Duong said.
"It should be postponed," said VP Bank Securities investor Nguyen Thien, who noted that the implementation of the new taxes now could have an unexpected impact on the market.
Investor caution apparently reduced trading volumes yesterday, with the HCM City Stock Exchange seeing only 10.80 million shares, worth a combined VND329.12 billion (US$19.94 million), changing hands during Monday's session.
Financials like Sacombank (STB), SSI and PVF continued to maintain their positions as among the most heavily-traded shares, although market-leader STB saw a volume of only 1.77 million shares on the day, with the volumes in all other codes failing to break the one-million mark.
Foreign investors continued selling off shares, shedding over 2.01 million while picking up just 1.3 million. PVF, SSI and Vinpearl (VPL) were among the few codes with net buys by foreign investors.
In Ha Noi yesterday, the HASTC-Index was also off only modestly, the losing 0.22 per cent to close at 103.97, on a volume of 6.61 million shares generating a turnover of VND169.07 billion ($10.29 million).
Viet Nam News
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