HCMC – The southern stock market made a fractional gain in the second straight rising session on Thursday, in line with rallies in the world, but liquidity remained depressed. The VN-Index rose a mere 0.96 point, or 0.21%, from the day earlier to 458.66.
Demand on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange dropped 13.7% against the previous session to nearly 49 million shares while supply rose 6.3% to 49.4 million shares. Closing the day, only 23.2 million shares worth VND597 billion changed hands, falling by 7.2% and 14.5% against the session earlier respectively.
The market opened higher and quickly jumped to above 460 points before sellers stepped in, pushing the index down to 457.88 at the end of the continuous matching phase. The market then recovered slightly and finally closed in the positive territory.
The number of losers was still higher than that of gainers at 105 to 84, of which six stocks ended the day at their ceiling prices and nine others plunged to the floor prices.
Vietnam Mechanization Electrification & Construction (MCG) became the biggest traded issue, jumping 4.7% to VND17,900 per share with over one million shares traded, followed by Société De Bourbon Tay Ninh Co. (SBT), which closed flat at VND11,800 on the volume of 717,000 shares.
Foreigners were still net buyers as they bought 3.1 million shares worth VND115 billion and sold two million shares worth VND40 billion, accounting for 19.4% and 6.7% of the market’s buying and selling value respectively.
The Hanoi market moved higher on Thursday but turnover remained low at VND421 billion. The HNX-Index inched up a mere 0.06 point, or 0.05%, from the previous session to close at 120.45.
There were 172 stocks rising versus 85 others falling, including seven stocks hitting the ceiling prices and seven others dropping to the floor prices. Foreigners were net buyers to the tune of around VND6 billion worth of shares.
HCMC Securities Corp. (HSC) it its comment said the only difference with Wednesday’s action was that buyers and sellers were much more in balance.
“Holders became relatively insensitive to further small losses, while buyers only placed small orders just in case. With an absence of economic, monetary and corporate news, there was no wonder that investors moved to the sidelines, waiting for something to happen somewhere,” the stock broker said.
Everyone was waiting for the other investors to pull the trigger and very few investors were actually doing anything, it said.
“On Friday again we saw the resilience of a number of stocks that don’t really go down anymore on days where the index loses ground, while they do move upwards if there’s an absence of bad news. Besides, these stocks can be found among the large caps as well as the smaller segment of the market. Solid companies with good fundamentals are certainly out there and don’t even come at a premium these days,” HSC said.
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