Stocks rebound despite measure of pessimism among foreign investors

Vietnamese stocks market has been posting gains after positive signals that the coronavirus outbreak is being brought under control.

The upbeat performance helped all three major indexes break their losing streaks. Furthermore, China has outlined plans to slash tariffs, helping boost sentiment among traders and investors.

Foreign investors remained pessimistic about several largest stocks on the Vietnamese exchange

The VN-Index inched up 0.42 per cent to 934.67 points, while the HNX-Index rose by 0.78 per cent to 104.78 points. The UPCoM slightly added 0.54 per cent to close at 55.67 points. Trading volume increased to 179 million shares or VND2.966 trillion ($128.96 million). Market breadth was positive with 172 advancers against 117 decliners, implying optimistic sentiment.

Notably, bank stocks led the gains since newfound optimism that Vietnamese lenders would provide more relief measures to firms hit hard by the novel coronavirus (nCoV) outbreak.

Some banks, such as Vietcombank, VPBank, HDBank, or ABBank told VIR that they would cut interest rates as a move to stimulate growth during the downturn.

BIDV (BID), VietinBank (CTG), and VPB (VPB) added 3.5, 4.3, and 3.3 per cent, respectively, as lower inflation allows the State Bank of Vietnam to lift credit limits.

“There is some silver lining,” said Phan Dung Khanh, an experienced investor living in Ho Chi Minh City.

However, the shares of Hoa Phat Group (HPG) slid 3.1 per cent on a heavy trading day after the firm announced a larger-than-expected expansion plan that could double capacity at its Dung Quat steel complex. Particularly, the total planned investment is VND60 trillion ($2.6 billion), including VND50 trillion ($2.17 billion) of fixed capital and VND10 trillion ($430 million) of working capital.

Hoa Sen Group (HSG), Nam Kim Steel (NKG), and Tien Len Steel (TLH) also followed suit by dropping 2.2, 1.5, and 0.9 per cent, respectively, due to concerns of oversupply.

Coteccons Construction (CTD) and FLC Faros Construction (ROS) gained 3.8 and 7.0 per cent due to investors’ expectations of stimulus measures focusing on infrastructure projects.

In addition, Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) has officially announced that it would pay 16 per cent cash dividend for its investors on April 10, 2020.