Terrific Tuesday for the markets

Market sentiment relaxed today with news the central bank had reduced the open market operations interest rate from 15 to 14 per cent, “which likely means the tightening money policy will be eased somewhat,” said Asia Commercial Bank Securities.

“If the situation continued to be positive, the lending interest rate might be lower in upcoming times,” said the brokerage firm.

The VN-Index of Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) gained 5.61 points or 1.32 per cent to 431.03 points. Some 183 stocks climbed with up to 60 hitting the ceiling on the southern bourse, while just 47 were off and 65 unchanged.

Investment and Trading of Real Estate (ITC), Tan Tao Investment Industry Corporation (ITA), Sacom Development and Investment Corp (SAM), Ocean Group JSC (OCG) and other active stocks massively jumped by more than 4 per cent.

Among bluechips, Vinamilk (VNM) added 1.77 per cent or VND2,000 to VND115,000 while Song Da Urban & Industrial Zone Investment and Development (SIS) rose 4.41 per cent, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) 3.45 per cent and PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD) were up 4.04 per cent.

Cash flows, however, mainly focused on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, pushing trading volumes up nearly 54 per cent to 29.2 million shares worth VND331 billion ($15.9 million). HoSE’s volume little changed at 25.93 million shares, worth VND391 billion ($18.89).

Securities company shares Kim Long Securities (KLS), VnDirect Securities (VND), Bao Viet Securities (BVS) and Wall Street Securities (WSS) all hit the ceiling or nearly hit the ceiling.

Major stocks PetroVietnam Construction (PVX), Vietnam Construction and Import - Export (VCG) and Sacomreal (SCR) all hit the ceiling.

More than 3.7 million KLS shares changed hands, followed by PVX and VND with 2.5 million and 2.2 million shares respectively. VCG and SCR were also active with more than one million shares traded.

Meanwhile, several stocks soared with just 100 to 200 stocks matched.

As high as 223 stocks were up on the northern bourse with 114 hitting the ceiling. However, the HNX-Index advanced just 1.31 points or 1.78 per cent to 74.31 points.

Habubank (HBB) and Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) both ended flat.