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Interest rate cut weighs on shares
Investors increased selling in the afternoon following news that the State Bank of Viet Nam kept its prime rate unchanged at 7.5 per cent per annum while details of a rescue package worth VND30 trillion (US$1.43 billion) for the real estate market remained unclear.
SBV yesterday lowered key interest rates (refinance, discount and overnight rates) by one percentage point but maintained the ceiling deposit interest rate at 7.5 per cent per annum. This move will prevent banks from making further rate cuts as the rates must be 50 per cent lower than the prime rate.
On the HCM City Stock Exchange, the VN-Index concluded yesterday's session at 486.10 points, off just 0.02 per cent from Thursday's close.
Blue chips led the market downturn, shown in a decrease of 0.13 per cent of the VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares by market capitalisation and liquidity, at 551.81 points.
Both market volume and value was down slightly from the previous day, totalling 85.6 million shares and fund certificates, worth nearly VND1.6 billion ($76.2 million).
However, negotiation trading continued to account for over half of the total, reaching VND895 billion ($42.6 million), again driven by trading on Sacombank (STB) and Eximbank (EIB).
During the last three sessions, nearly 43 million EIB shares, worth VND674.8 billion ($32.1 million), and up to 72.35 million STB shares, worth nearly VND1.56 trillion ($74.3 million), were traded through negotiation.
Sacombank denied the link between unusually heavy trading of the bank's shares during the last two days on the bourse and the bank's sale of the share holdings by its former chairman Dang Van Thanh, confirming these transactions were made purely according to supply and demand.
However, sensitive relations between STB and EIB, particularly after EIB revealed its plan to merge with STB in the next five years, has made the transactions worth billions of dong for these two shares in recent days suspicious.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index gave up 0.26 per cent to close at 60.48 points. Nearly 31.4 million shares, worth VND235.5 billion ($11.2 million), were exchanged by the end of the session.
Property developer Sacomreal (SCR), PetroVietnam Constrution (PVX) and Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank (SHB) continued to dominate trading here with each code seeing 4.2-4.8 million shares traded.
SCR and PVX closed flat at VND7,600 and VND5,500 a share, respectively, but SHB slid 1.45 per cent at VND6,800 each.
Foreign investors reduced their buyings yesterday, picking a combined net buy of just VND39.3 billion ($1.9 million) worth of shares on both exchanges.
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