VN stocks slow gains down on economic worries

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange inched up 0.03 per cent to close at 951.41 points.

The VN-Index gained as much as 0.76 per cent during the day. It rose 0.50 per cent on Tuesday.

The market is missing much needed information that is strong enough to boost morale, according to Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities (SHS).

The US central bank Fed’s decision to lower interest rates in 2019 hardly had any positive impact on the Vietnamese market, SHS said in its daily report.

The decline of trading liquidity proved domestic investors were getting bored with the current market condition and they were trying to run away from local stocks, SHS added.

Nearly 131.6 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND2.7 trillion (US$116 million).

The figures were down 19 per cent in volume and 19.4 per cent in value from Tuesday.

The weak market confidence sent the large-cap VN30-Index down 0.08 per cent to 863.69 points at the end of the day.

Weighing on the large-cap basket were Eximbank (EIB), steel producer Hoa Phat Group (HPG), VPBank (VPB), Vietcombank (VCB) and Military Bank (MBB).

The five large-cap stocks dropped between 0.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent.

Their declines outweighed the growth of other stocks such as real estate firm Vingroup (VIC), DHG Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG) and retailer Mobile World (MWG).

On a sector basis, property, retail, rubber, technology and plastic sector indices advanced between 0.7 per cent and 2.7 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Wednesday increase might be a technical recovery only and it remained uncertain that the stock market had overcome its downtrend, according to Thanh Cong Securities Co (TCSC).

The unpredictability of the US-China trade war and worries over the global economic development would continue overshadowing the market performance, TCSC said.

The stock market would need to go through some more falling sessions to consolidate before rising again, TCSC added.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index edged up 0.47 per cent to end at 103.54 points.

The northern market index had fallen total 2.14 per cent in the previous four trading days.

More than 20.3 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VND240.7 billion.