VN stocks change little on lack of purchasing power

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) closed the early session at 984.69 points, 0.02 per cent higher than Wednesday’s close of 984.46 points.

The southern market index fell a total of 0.42 per cent in the previous two trading days.

More than 85 million shares, worth VND1.65 trillion (US$70.7 million), were traded on the southern bourse.

The stock market fell as investors were cautious about the current trading conditions, which pointed to a sideways move for the stock market.

Large-cap stocks were mixed with 12 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation in the blue-chip VN30-Index making gains, while 10 declined.

The VN30-Index inched up 0.12 per cent to 902.57 points at the end of the morning session.

On the sector level, petroleum and insurance were among the best-performing sectors with their sector indices growing by 0.5 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively, data on vietstock.vn showed.

On the opposite side, banks and property developers lost momentum and dragged a part of local stocks down.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index dropped 0.19 per cent to end at 107.10 points.

The northern market index was down a total of 0.39 per cent in the previous two days.

Nearly 17 million shares, worth VND232.3 billion, were traded on the northern bourse.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm.