Strong sell-off hits Vietnam stocks

A string of bad press about the new coronavirus led domestic and international stock markets to dip sharply on the first trading session of the week.

Today, South Korean authorities reported another 231 new cases of coronavirus infections, taking the Northeast Asian country’s total to 833. A seventh death was also confirmed in Korea. Korea now has the second most cases after China.

Investor sentiment remained dampened till the afternoon. The benchmark VN-Index moved sideways and fell through the supporting level of 905 points.

At the close, it edged down a massive 29.75 points, or 3.19% against last Friday to 903.34. Only 42 stocks advanced and the number of losers was nearly eight times higher than that of winners.

Trading volume rose over 41% at over 291 million shares and value picked up 28% at over VND5 trillion.

In the VN30 basket, fuel company POW, brokerage SSI, and lenders TCB and VPB closed the session down.

Many large-cap stocks in the basket declined steeply. Lender BID dropped as much as 6.4% to the intraday low at VND46,300, and its fellow CTG lost a staggering 5.6%.

Many bluechips encountered a gloomy trading day, with insurer BVH, steelmaker HPG, consumer goods firm MSN, lender MBB inching down by 3%-5%.

Among speculative stocks, property developer FLC was the most actively traded stock on the HCMC bourse, with more than 19 million shares transacted, but it slid nearly 7%.

On the Hanoi bourse, the HNX-Index dropped 3.91 points, or 3.62%, over the session earlier to 104.18, with 23 stocks rising and 63 others decreasing.

Many stocks in the HNX30 basket fell sharply. Specifically, lender ABC lost 6.6%, gas firm PVS plummeted over 6%, and industrial company VCS tumbled 9.4%.

Lender SHB bucked the downtrend, buoyed by strong demand.