HCMC – The latest moves of the HCMC government to cope with the on-going fourth coronavirus wave as well as the short-term profit-taking prompted the local stock market to end the final session of the week in negative territory on July 23.
The southern city, which is now the country’s biggest coronavirus hotspot, today decided to extend the stay-at-home mandate under the prime minister’s Directive 16 until August 1 and will adopt more aggressive measures to combat Covid-19. This news made investors more cautious about their investment portfolios.
At the close, the benchmark VN-Index of the HCMC market shed 24.84 points, or 1.92% against the previous session at 1,268.83, with 282 stocks falling and 97 others rising.
The southern bourse saw 578.37 million shares worth over VND19 trillion changing hands, up 7.8% in volume and 12.63% in value. Shares transacted in block deals contributed more than VND1.2 trillion to the overall value.
The selling pressure picked up strength toward the end of the session and was the main reason behind the market’s downtrend.
The VN30 basket had 26 decliners and four advancers.
Lender STB cooled down after stealing the limelight in the morning phase. It ended 2.5% higher and led the southern bourse by liquidity, with a matching volume of 63.58 million shares. Besides, dairy firm VNM, electricity company POW, and tech firm FPT also narrowed down their gains and rose slightly at the close by around 1%.
As for the decliners in the basket, a host of bank stocks fell sharply by over 3% such as VCB, CTG, TCB, ACB, EIB, and VIB, while their fellows including BID, MBB, and TPB dipped over 2%.
Other largecaps such as steelmaker HPG, housing developer VHM, consumer food producer MSN, and brokerage SSI inched down over 3%; and property firm VIC, jewelry maker PNJ, and mobile phone retailer MWG lost more than 2%. Retailer VRE was the biggest decliner in the basket as it plunged 4.3% to its intraday low.
Also, after hitting their ceiling prices in the previous session, many property stocks reversed course to end lower such as SCR, IJC, and DIG.
The selling pressure also became more intense at the close on the northern bourse, driving the HNX-Index down to 301.77 points, dipping 1.37% or 4.2 points, with 63 winners and 116 losers.
In the HNX30 basket, only seven stocks made gains. The top five stocks by liquidity in the basket including SHB, PVS, VND were big losers.
