Oil and gas stocks send market tumbling

According to vietstock.vn, the fall of petroleum stocks was attributed to a steep decline of oil prices. Having lost 3.6% last Friday at US$$64.5 a barrel, Brent crude continued losing 1.4% in the morning.

The energy and mining sector index tumbled 2.4% on the HCMC bourse. GAS and PVD, the two biggest firms by market value in the industry, plummeted 2.8% and 5.1% at VND101,400 and VND17,750, respectively.

Dismal investor sentiment spread to other sectors amid rising worries about United States-China trade tensions. The VN30 basket saw only three stocks advancing, namely fertilizer producer DPM, lender EIB and beverage firm SAB.

Market trade improved sharply given rising selling, with volume and value soaring 35.2% and 40.2% against last Friday at 184.6 million shares and VND4.5 trillion. On the put-through market, 43 million shares worth VND1.38 trillion changed hands, including 7.8 million shares of construction firm ROS and eight million shares of leading sugar enterprise SBT.

Steel maker HPG attracted foreign investors but it still closed down 1.9% at VND31,500. The company became the most actively traded stock on the HCMC bourse with more than 12.2 million shares traded.

Building firm ROS was the second most liquid stock with matching volume of 10.7 million shares, dipping a slight 0.5% at VND29,800.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index slumped 1.07 points, or 1.03%, from the session earlier to close at 103.28. Trading volume jumped 16.7% at 37.9 million shares but value inched down 2.1% at over VND409 billion.

Fuel firms on the Hanoi exchange also performed poorly. PVS tumbled 5.3% at VND21,400 but the petroleum technical service enterprise took the leader by volume, with 5.5 million shares traded.

According to tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn, trade tensions escalated last month after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration accused China of having reneged on its previous promises of structural changes. The U.S. then imposed 25% tariffs on US$200 billion of Chinese goods.

Nguyen Huu Binh, former head of IVS Securities Company’s analysis department, told the website that the world stock market was making negative movements, thus affecting Vietnamese markets.

The market will continue falling as investor confidence will be dampened, forcing investors to sell in early June, Binh said.