Shares gain narowly as banks’ growth tempts investors to sell

The benchmark VN-Index gained 0.44 per cent to close Thursday at 893.31 points – a slow gain compared to the peak of nearly 1.02 per cent reached during trading.

The HNX-Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange was up 0.88 per cent to end at 115.03 points.

The VN-Index inched down 0.14 per cent on Wednesday while the HNX-Index has grown by a total of nearly 7.9 per cent since last Thursday.

More than 343.4 million shares were traded on the two exchanges on Thursday, worth VND4.90 trillion (US$211.4 million).

The figure included nearly 296.7 million shares, worth VND4.06 trillion, being traded in order-matching transactions.

However, market growth was slower as the early gains of financial and banking stocks tempted investors to sell, VNDirect Securities Corporation (VNDS) said in its daily report.

Shares in Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), VPBank (VPB), SSI Securities (SSI) and HCM City Securities (HCM) rose between 1.1 per cent and 3.4 per cent.

The securities and banking sector indices were up 0.8-1.9 per cent at close in comparison to their gains of 1.5-2.8 per cent made in the morning session.

The Vietnamese market was moving along with global stocks but growth was lower than expected as selling increased in the afternoon session, VNDS said.

Global stocks markets had been fluctuating in recent days, making investors in Viet Nam lose along the way, the brokerage said.

Increased selling pressure on Thursday afternoon indicated that investors still wanted to make use of recovery waves to offload shares and minimise the risks to their portfolios, VNDS said.

Net foreign selling continued weighing on the Vietnamese market for a third week as foreign investors net-sold VND313 billion worth of local shares on the two exchanges.

The main target on Thursday was Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank (SHB), with foreign investors selling a net value of VND304 billion.

SHB shares soared 7.5 per cent at the end of the day.

These negative developments would make it harder for the market to recover, VNDS said, adding that stocks only rallied on bargain hunting, which was unstable.

It was understandable that investors were quite cautious as they were the ones who would suffer from the risks and threats, the company said.