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Power rate rise to hit business
Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN) hiked electricity rates by another 5 per cent on Sunday, a move estimated to bring them in another VND3.7 trillion ($177 million) in revenues.
However, many listed enterprises complained that the higher power costs would cause them to face further difficulties.
In the steel industry alone, a recent survey showed, electricity costs accounted for up yo 6 per cent of the prices of steel products. These companies were already facing weak demand.
Late last week, the General Statistics Office also announced that more than 26,000 enterprises suspended operation or faced dissolution in the first half of this year.
Meanwhile, HCM City Stock Exchange began to apply market pricing yesterday, allowing investors to trade securities at the best price currently available.
"The purpose of market pricing is to provide a tool for investors to place orders, creating flexibility during continuous order matching," the exchange's deputy director, Le Hai Tra, earlier explained.
With a fast order matching and high success probability, market pricing would be effective in a rapidly fluctuating market, he added.
Nevertheless, the new matching order system failed to lift shares in yesterday's trading. On the HCM City Stock Exchange, the VN-Index lost over 0.7 per cent of its value to close at 419.30 points.
The value of trades dropped 38 per cent from last Friday's level to reach just VND620.5 billion (US$29.5 million) on a volume of only 38.6 million shares. Losers overwhelmed gainers by 174-55.
The VN30 Index, tracking the exchange's best stocks, also retreated by 1 per cent to 492.66 points.
Among the 30 leading shares, only two managed gains, commercial baker Kinh Do (KDC) and food processor Masan Group (MSN).
Meanwhile, construction stocks bottomed like HCM City Infrastructure Investment Co (CII), Khang Dien House (KDH) and Sudico (SJS) all bottomed out.
Sacombank (STB) concluded the day as the most-active share with nearly 2 million traded. STB fell 0.9 per cent to close at VND22,000 per share.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index closed off by 1.4 per cent to 70.09 points on very sluggish trades, with just 24.3 million shares changing hands, worth a mere VND223.2 billion ($10.6 million).
With 3.3 million shares exchanged, VNDirect Securities Co (VND) became the most-active code nationwide
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