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Punters yawn at new trading hours
The introduction of extended hours for continuous order matching, expected to boost activity on the HCM City Stock Exchange, failed to stimulate any investor excitement yesterday, as the VN-Index shed another 0.91 per cent to close at 447.27.
Volume fell 11.7 per cent from Friday's session to just 45.7 million shares, worth just VND1.1 trillion (US$56.4 million).
Under the new trading hours, the market will now spend 105 minutes in continuous order matching, instead of the previous 60 minutes. The opening and closing sessions of periodical order matching were shortened to 15 minutes each.
Viet-Han Corporation (VHG) was the most-active share, with 1.5 million changing hands, after the share gained a cumulative 20 per cent over the course of several sessions last week, encouraging investors to realise profits yesterday.
VHG shares closed short of their ceiling price at VND20,900.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange yesterday, the HNX-Index fell for a second day to 128.22 points, a loss of 2.23 per cent. Trading value dropped below the VND1 trillion-level to VND895.9 billion ($45.9 million), on a meagre volume of 37.56 million shares.
PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) remained the most-active share nationwide, with 5.3 million shares traded.
Investors were still waiting on an end to the current revision in the market, suggested Nguyen Quang Tien, a broker with a Da Nang-based securities firm.
"Buy orders only appeared once share prices fell very low," Tien said.
Independent analyst Phan Dung Khanh said the current correction might be due to major investors still holding higher-priced shares from the previous advance and waiting on a profit-taking opportunity.
Khanh predicted that the VN-Index would return to the 480-point level only after it has fallen to 440 and investors began buying in, starting a new advance.
Foreigners investors yesterday were net buyers nationwide of a net of 2.1 million shares, for a net value of VND72.2 billion ($3.7 million).
vietnamnews
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