Investors happy on the sidelines

Trading value reduced to new low level of VND85.4 billion ($4.1 million) on Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), the value was of VND364.7 billion ($17.5 million) on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE).

Only two tickers Saigon Commercial Real Estate (SCR) and Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) had over 1 million shares matched, while trading volumes of highly liquid stocks massively fell to few hundreds of thousands of units in the northern bourse.

Un-traded tickers amounted to 156 stocks on the northern bourse. Weak demand for shares pushing 99 stocks down compared with 62 up.

Prices of top active stocks Hanoi Investment General Corp. (SHN), South East Asia Hamico Export (KSD), Vietnam Industrial & Commercial Securities Corp. (VIG) and Thai Hoa Viet Nam Group (THV) reduced to nearly VND1,000 per share.

Leading tickers Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB), VNDirect Securities (VND), Bao Viet Securities (BVS), PetroVietnam Construction (PVX), Vietnam Construction and Import-Export (VCG) significantly dropped.

Also on the HoSE, just two tickers Military Bank (MBB) and Saigon Securities Inc. (SSI) had matching value of over 1 million units.

Several large-cap stocks tumbled, including Bao Viet Holdings, PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), Masan Group (MSN) and Vincom Corp. (VIC), weighing on the VN-Index.

The real estate sector ended mixed with Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG), Kinhbac City Development Share Holding Corp. (KBC), Quoc Cuong Gia Lai (QCG) rising while Licogi 16 (LCGThu Duc Housing Development (TDH), Tan Tao Investment Industry Corp. (ITA) slumped.

Banking stocks largely moved sideways, namely Eximbank (EIB), Military Bank (MBB), Sacombank (STB) and Vietcombank (VCB) all ended flat and Vietinbank (CTG) slightly added. Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) fell on HNX.

At the close, VN-Index lost 1.23 points or 0.32 per cent to 383.87 points. HNX-Index shed 0.58 points or 0.94 per cent to 51.41 points.