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Dim profit picture hits stocks
News of lower petrol prices released on Thursday afternoon again failed to boost shares in Friday's trading, with stock prices continuing to fall on both of the nation's trading boards.
While share prices had increased substantially since the beginning of the year, profit prospects of most listed companies had dimmed, making the market less attractive to short-term cash flows, wrote analysts of MB Securities Co in a research note.
A number of stock brokerages have recently lowered the interest rates they charge to clients on loans to finance margin trading from an average of 20-22 per cent per year to 18-20 per cent, but this seems to have done little to whet risk appetites.
"We appreciate this move by securities companies which will help encourage further investment in the market," the MB Securities analysts said. "We believe that margin lending rates will continue to drop in the near future, along with interest rates charged by banks, due to general declining trend of inflation."
On the HCM City Stock Exchange yesterday, the VN-Index lost another 0.92 per cent to close at 427.17 points. The value of trades improved slightly over Thursday's pace, reaching VND756 billion (US$36 million) on a volume of 51.7 million shares.
The VN30 Index, which tracks the 30 leading shares by market capitalisation and liquidity, also slid by 0.87 per cent to 500.34, with nearly three quarters of the shares in this group giving up value.
HCM City Infrastructure Development (CII) and financial conglomerate Ocean Group (OGC) dropped to the floor prices while food processor Masan Group (MSN) sank by 3.9 per cent. On the other end of spectrum, Phu My Fertilisers (DPM) and Sacombank (STB) were among the few gainers but posted increases of a modest 0.3-0.5 per cent.
Sacombank (STB) was also the most-active share on the HCM City market yesterday with 2.3 million traded, closing up to VND22,400 per share.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also decreased by 0.8 per cent to 73.31 points on a modest value of only VND431.3 billion ($20.5 million).
PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) again claimed the position as most-active code on the Ha Noi bourse, with trades of 4.5 million shares, but PVX sank by nearly 2 per cent to settle yesterday at VND10,000 a share.
Foreign investors increased their buys on both exchanges yesterday, picking up a combined net of VND94 billion ($4.5 million) worth of shares.
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