VN-Index moves sideways on May 16

After a five-day winning streak, VN-Index found it hard to conquer the level of 980 points at the close.

Given 122 stocks rising and 160 others losing, VN-Index rose slightly at 0.05 points, or 0.01%, at 975.69 points. The southern bourse saw over 170 million shares worth VND3.85 trillion changing hands, falling 10% in volume and 7% in value against the session earlier. Block deals contributed over VND1 trillion to the total value.

Despite heavy sell-off at the close, the active trading volume of some large-cap stocks saved the index from the deep plunge.

Notably, property group VIC advanced 1.4% at VND116,900 per share while housing developer VHM improved 1.2% at VND87,000. Retailer VRE was also traded actively, seeing 4.8 million shares changing hands.

The stocks in the Vingroup family kept their growth due to the supporting news that SK Group has announced its VND23.3-trillion spending on purchasing Vingroup’s shares.

Construction firm ROS became the volume leader of the southern exchange when closing the day up 0.2% at VND32,650, with 9.7 million shares transacted.

Bank stocks were key laggards for the southern bourse as most of them finished the session down. Lenders TCB, CTG and HDB had from 2.1 to 2.4 million shares traded while their fellows such as STB, VPB, TPB and MBB saw 1.5-1.8 million shares changing hands.

Most speculative stocks came under selling pressure today. Apart from the rise of property firms HAG, SCR and PDR, mining firm AMD and furniture company TTF, property developer FLC stole the lime light, seeing 8.7 million shares transacted. FLC was the second most actively traded stock on the southern bourse.

The HNX-Index of the Hanoi Stock Exchange lost steam, closing the day down 0.32% against the previous session at 106.09 points. Trading volume and value tumbled 15% and 7% at 30.44 million shares worth VND430 billion.

The fall of most blue chips and weak demand sent HNX-Index down. Lender ACB, industrial firm VCS and construction firm VCG dipped 0.7% at 29,300, 1.1% at VND64,200 and 0.8% at VND25,900, respectively.

Gas firm PVS led the northern bourse by liquidity with 3.3 million shares changing hands, followed by lender SHB with three million shares matched.