Tough day for HOSE

Major stocks to take took a hit after earlier signs of slight recovery were Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Masan Group (MSN), Vinpearl Tourism and Trading (VPL), all down by more than 3 per cent each.

PetroVietNam Drilling and Well Services (PVD), FPT Corp. (FPT), Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) also dropped in value.

Song Da Urban & Industrial Zone Investment and Development (SJS) hit the floor as its major construction project was suspended.

Vincom Corp. (VIC), Ocean Group (OGC) and most other financial shares ended the day lower.

Meanwhile, speculators turned their noses up at speculative stocks like Post and Telecommunications Investment and Construction (PTC), PetroVietnam - Idico Long Son Industrial Park Investment (PXL), Binh Duong Trade and Development (TDC), Transport Engineering Construction & Business Investment (NTB). All experienced very low trading volumes.

The VN-Index of the southern bourse lost 5.08 points or 1.23 per cent to end at 409.38 points. More than half the market gave back with 153 stocks down, 67 up and 82 unchanged.

Liquidity of the main bourse hit 22.4 million shares worth VND385 billion ($18.8 million). Of these, 4.4 million shares worth VND95 billion ($4.6 million) were negotiated.

Becamex Infrastructure Development (IJC) outperformed the market with 1.4 million shares matched today. Others all had matching volume below 500,000 units each.

Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) lost 0.71 points or 1.04 per cent further to 67.72 points, after 208 stocks lost value. Just 45 advanced and 142 were unchanged on the market.

Total volume remained low at 24 million shares worth VND235.57 billion ($11.5 million). Put-through volume made up 3.4 million shares worth VND41.2 billion ($2 million).

But trading volumes of speculative stocks including Kim Long Securities (KLS), VnDirect Securities (VND), Orient Securities (ORS), Vinashin Petroleum Investment and Transport (VSP), all hit 1–2 million units each.