Jury out on stimulus plan

Red largely covered the trading board. Some 203 stocks were off on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), compared with just 38 advancing.

Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) saw more than half the bourse fell. Some 187 stocks off overwhelmed 52 advancers.

Details of the government’s plans to inject $1 billion into the economy each month until the end of this year are still unclear. Uncertainties about whether the government fulfills such promise beat bullish speculation from early this week.

Large-cap stocks largely dropped on increasing selling pressure. Real estate large-cap stocks Song Da Urban & Industrial Zone Investment and Development (SJS), Ocean Group (OGC), Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) strongly shed 2-4 per cent, while Vincom Corp (VIC) slipped VND500 to VND82,000. Financial stocks Saigon Securities Inc. (SSI), Vietcombank (VCB), Military Bank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG) also lost 2-4 per cent each.

Cheap speculative stocks meanwhile massively sunk. Real-estate stocks like Hoang Quan Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate Corp. (HQC), PetroVietnam-Idico Long Son Industrial Park Investment (PXL), Sao Mai Construction Corp. (ASM), Becamex Infrastructure Development (IJC), International Development and Investment Corp (IDI) along with a mass of other real estate stocks dropped 3-5 per cent each.

Mineral stocks Bac Giang Exploitable Mineral (BGM), Binh Thuan Mineral Industry (KSA), Binh Dinh Minerals (BMC) sharply fell to the floor prices. Just Tay Bac Minerals Investment (KTB) saw slight fall.

PetroVietnam-family stocks like PetroVietnam-Nghe An Construction (PVA), PetroVietnam Technical Services Corp. (PVS), PetroVietnam Northern Gas (PVG), PVI Investment and Development (PV2) all fell, but the falls were modest at some 2-3 per cent each.

Also, securities company shares VNDirect Securities (VND), Saigon-Hanoi Securities (SHS), Bao Viet Securities (BVS), Au Viet Securities Corp. (AVS) mostly saw falls of 1-3 per cent.

Overall, the VN-Index lost 4.51 points or 1.04 per cent to 431.08 points, while the HNX-Index slipped 0.82 points or 1.09 per cent to 74.08 points. Although the loss of the market today was modest, investors started to fear a sharp fall in next sessions as the market sentiment tend to be more negative.

HoSE’s matching value stood at just VND535.5 billion ($25.9 million). Total liquidity was 68.6 million shares worth VND1.15 trillion ($55.6 million).
HNX’s matching value fell to low of VND297.9 billion ($14.4 million), with total liquidity standing at 35.6 million shares worth VND371.8 billion ($17.9 million).