Stocks drop for second straight session

With losers outnumbering gainers by 164 to 131, the benchmark index dropped 0.25% against the previous session to close at 983.78 points.

Nearly 175 million shares worth some VND3.9 trillion were transacted on the southern bourse, down 15.3% and 58.8%, respectively. Of these, block deals saw more than 47.7 million shares changing hands at a total value of VND1.05 trillion.

The banking sector was the driving force on Wednesday morning as investors had higher appetite for their stocks with the hope that banks will release good earnings reports for the second quarter. However, some lenders, such as VCB, CTG, HDB and EIB, encountered slight correction in the evening.

Some other bank stocks still maintained their uptrend, but their gains were lower than in early trading. For example, BID, VPB, and CTG added 0.45%, 0.53%, and 1.41% to end at VND32,200, VND19,100 and VND21,550, respectively.

Many blue chips such as housing developer VHM, dairy producer VNM, gas firm GAS and retailer VRE were in negative territory while leading property developer VIC, brewer SAB, and lenders STB and TPP remained unchanged.

Construction firm ROS still led the market by liquidity with more than 9.5 million shares exchanged while its value slid a further 2.6% to VND31,600 per share. Petroleum firm PVD ranked second with matching volume of roughly 5.3 million shares, dropping 1.8% at VND20,800.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.15% against the previous day at 106.13 points as decliners led advancers by 77 to 60.

Local trade surged 93.7% in volume and 102% in value to over 53 million shares worth VND645 billion, of which put-through transactions amounted to 14.3 million shares at a combined VND207 billion.

Among the top 10 stocks by market capitalization on the northern bourse, lender ACB and stone manufacturer VCS inched up 0.68% and 0.32% at VND29,600 and VND62,800 per share.

However, detergent and chemical firm DGC, petroleum technical service firm PVS, insurer PVI, and port operator PHP suffered declines between 1.28% and 4.35% while other large stocks, including lender SHB, closed at their reference prices.

SHB was still the most actively traded stock with a staggering 9.4 million shares changing hands, six million higher than in Tuesday’s session.