Market explodes into action

The State Bank announced yesterday’s late-afternoon decrease in policy interest rates, among them refinancing, discount, overnight interbank electronic settlement lending and ceiling bank deposit rates were all down by 1 percentage points.

In addition, its governor Nguyen Van Binh said the central bank would ease further credit policies to real estate loans. Binh also indicated that Vietnam’s foreign currency reserves were strong at $17 billion.

Hundreds of real estate and construction stocks hit the ceiling on both bourses. The two sectors led the gainers today with the gains of 3.88 and 4.73 per cent respectively, according to website vietstock.vn’s statistics.

Among them, Becamex Infrastructure Development (IJC), Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG), Licogi16 (LCG) were active the most with 2-4 million shares matched each. Other large-cap real estate stocks like Ocean Group (OGC), Quoc Cuong Gia Lai (QCG) also largely hit the ceiling.

Low-price real estate stocks PetroVietnam-Idico Long Son Industrial Park Investment (PXL), Ninh Van Bay Real Estate (NVT), Vietnam Electricity Construction (VNE) and Hoang Quan Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate Corp. (HQC) were also among top active with 1-2 million shares matched each.

Three-quarters the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) ended up, namely 237 stocks gained with 116 hitting the ceiling. The benchmark VN-Index soared 7.89 point soared 1.75 per cent to end at 458.74 points.

Blue-chips strongly jumped, with the VN30 rising as high as 10.23 points or 1.98 per cent to close at 527.63 points. Cash strongly flew into the market, particularly in the afternoon. Total value reached VND1.56 trillion ($75.5 million) on the southern bourse, while volumes hitting 99.4 million units.

Meanwhile, banking stocks like Military Bank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG), Vietcombank (VCB) or Saigon Securities Inc. (SSI), PetroVietnam Finance (PVF) just modestly advanced 1-2 per cent each.

Real estate and construction stocks also saw a strong surge on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX). Highly liquid stocks in the sectors, including, Vietnam Construction and Import-Export (VCG), Saigon Commercial Real Estate (SCR), IDJ International Financial Investment and Enterprise Development (IDJ), massively hit the ceiling with 1-4 million shares matched each. The leading stock PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) was the second active stock in the bourse with 10.4 million units matched, hitting the ceiling.

HNX-Index jumped 2.1 points or 2.78 per cent to end at 77.51 points, after up to 263 stocks gaining and just 44 declining. Liquidity surged to 98.5 million shares worth VND956.8 billion ($46.2 million).