Bourses heading south

As the local macroeconomic picture shows no signs of brightening, investors remained strongly cautious in bidding for shares today.

Total volume fell to 24.4 million shares worth VND370 billion ($18 million) on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), which kept very low at 28.8 million shares worth VND262.6 billion ($12.8 million) on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX).

“Hot” speculative stocks largely tumbled, with Binh Duong Trade and Development (TDC), Hoang Quan Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate Corp (HQC), Transport Engineering Construction & Business Investment JSC 584 (NTB), Becamex Infrastructure Development (IJC), PetroVietnam-Idico Long Son Industrial Park Investment (PXM), Post and Telecommunications Investment and Construction (PTC) all hit the floor or nearly hit the floor.

Securities company shares strongly dropped on HNX despite Q3 profit results of a number of major brokerages. Kim Long Securities (KLS) declined 4.81 per cent, VnDirect (VND) 2.97 per cent, Bao Viet Securities (BVS) 3.52 per cent, while Wall Street Securities (WSS) and Orient Securities (ORS) falling to VND4,400 and VND3,000, each.

On the HoSE, major stocks modestly shed, among them Saigon Securities Inc. (SSI) lost 1.7 per cent, Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corp. (REE) 1.74 per cent, Vietcombank (VCB) 1.15 per cent and Licogi 16 (LCG) off 1.67 per cent.

Producing stocks like Hoa Phat Group (HPG), FPT Corp. (FPT), Kinh Do Corp. (KDC), Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) saw slighter drops of just below 1 per cent each.

Pillars stocks Vincom Corp. (VIC), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Masan Group (MSN) and Vinamilk (VNM) slipped after significantly supporting the market in some previous sessions, pushing the market down further.

The benchmark VN-Index lost as much as 6.52 points or 1.59 per cent to 404.32 points, with 176 stocks off against 46 up and 56 unchanged.

The HNX-Index fell to 68.46 points, down 0.73 points or 1.06 per cent. Some 178 stocks gave back on the northern bourse, while just 58 were up and 157 ended flat.