Việt Nam stocks lose on last-minute selling

A broker watches stocks move at MB Securities Company. - VNS Photo Trương Vị

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange dropped 2.47 per cent, or nearly 28 points, to end at 1,093.48 points. It gained 1.6 per cent last week.

This marked the worst decline for the benchmark index since it suffered two drops of 5.10 per cent and 3.54 per cent a month ago.

The minor HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange lost 2.14 per cent to close at 125.51 points, reversing from a 0.9 per cent gain made on Friday.

On the contrary, the UPCOM Index on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) was up 0.45 per cent to 60.44 points, extending its growth for a second day and increasing 1 per cent in total.

More than 364 million shares were traded across the three local exchanges, worth VNĐ11.48 trillion (US$510.4 million).

The market breadth was negative with 352 declining stocks against 285 gainers.

According to the Hà Nội-based Bảo Việt Securities Company (BVSC), the benchmark VN-Index plunged in the last minutes dragged by strong selling pressure despite staying on its uptrend during most of the trading session.

“Investors feared that the market could form a two-peak pattern in the short term,” BVSC said in its daily report.

Liquidity surged and surpassed the average level with negative market breadth, signaling that “investors were cautious and anxious about the possibility of a plunge in the next session,” the company said.

In the 20 industries on the stock market, financial stocks with banks and securities firms were two of those that were worst hit by investors’ strong selling pressure, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The banking and brokerage industry indices plummeted 5.6 per cent and 5.7 per cent, respectively.

The banking industry was sunk by Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Vietcombank (VCB) and MBBank (MBB).

Those leading bank stocks tumbled at least 5 per cent.

Among securities firms, the four big ones – VNDirect Securities (VND), Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), HCM City Securities Corp (HCM) and BIDV Securities (BSI) – were brought down to their daily declining band of 6.7-7 per cent.

In addition, energy stocks also traded in the negative territory as oil remained pessimistic during the Asian trading session.

The worst-performers among energy stocks included PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), Bình Sơn Refining and Petrochemical Company (BSR) and PetroVietnam Coating JSC (PVB).

Viet Dragon Securities Co (VDS) wrote in its report that the correction had finally taken place in an unexpected scenario and there was a high chance the benchmark index would drop deeper on Tuesday.