Stock Market remains cagey

Consumer price index (CPI) growth for January in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi were being reported at 1.01 per cent and 1.68 per cent today. The high increasing CPIs, stemming from accelerating commodities prices because of the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, and ongoing frosty weather, was accordance with the market’s previous concern as once again it had rose more than 1 per cent – the third time within one a year.

Under pressure from gloomy macroeconomic factors, stocks mostly fell on the two bourses. Up to 119 stocks went down against 99 going up on the HoSE, whilst 132 fell, 47 had no transactions, and 137 advanced on the HNX. Whereas, the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) rose even more strongly today with its benchmark VN-Index climbing to 511.98 points, up 6.07 points or 1.2 per cent.

The surprising rise continued with the help of a handful of blue-chips: Bao Viet Holding (BVH), Masan Group (MSN), Vinamik (VNM) all hit the ceiling along with PetroVietnam Finance (PVF) and PetroVietnam Fertilisers (DPM) also boosting the index today.

The other major stocks mostly fell, among them Sai Gon Securities (SSI), PetroVietnam Drilling (PVD), Itaco (ITA), Vinpearl JSC (VPL) and FPT Corp. (FPT).

The unusual movement of VN-Index is increasingly underscoring analysts’ speculation about an intervention of foreign exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which would drive up the local index.

Liquidity remained mostly unchanged at 4,102 shares worth VND1.07 trillion ($53.5 million) today. On the Hanoi exchange, the HNX-Index ended lower at 107.02 points, down 0.25 points or 0.23 per cent. Liquidity fell some 10 per cent to 20.26 million shares worth VND372.34 billion ($18.62 million).

Foreign investors raised purchases to 5.05 million shares on HoSE today, focused mostly on PVF. On HXN they bought 640,700 units and selling 287,200, focused on KLS and PVS respectively.