HCMC – As profit-taking pressure increased among stocks in the property and transport sectors and some heavyweights lost steam, the VN-Index of the Hochiminh Stock Exchange tumbled today, August 17.
The benchmark index shed 7.87 points, or 0.57% against the previous session at 1,363.09, with 148 winners and 232 losers. Turnover on the southern bourse contracted 7% in volume and 6% in value at more than 768 million shares and over VND25.7 trillion. Of the total value, shares transacted in block deals accounted for more than VND1.2 trillion.
Property firm VIC, steelmaker HPG and lender VCB were the three most actively traded stocks and supported the main index in the morning phase. However, VIC and VCB slowed down in the afternoon, while HPG maintained growth. Specifically, HPG gained 1.9%, VIC added 0.6%, and VCB rose a slight 0.4%.
Other bluechips that made gains were jewelry maker PNJ, rubber group GVR, and two lenders TPB and MBB. They increased 0.6-1.1%.
Meanwhile, housing developer VHM was the main drag on the market and was the biggest decliner in the VN30 basket, as it lost 4.3% to VND111,000.
Aside from VHM, other underperformers also included brewery firm SAB, gas firm GAS, retailer VRE, and lender CTG, which fell 1.4-4%. Besides, electricity company POW, fuel distributor PLX, insurer BVH, housing developer KDH, and brokerage SSI dipped around 1%, while low-cost carrier VJC and lender HDB moved sideways.
As for liquidity, steelmaker HPG led the market with a matching volume of over 45.4 million shares. Housing developer VHM saw nearly 20 million shares changing hands, while financial stocks such as STB and SSI saw over 20 million and nearly 13 million shares traded, respectively. The lenders of ACB, VPB, CTG, TCB, MBB recorded 8.7-18.4 million shares transacted each.
One upside of this session is that stocks in the steel sector were the outstanding cash magnets, as HSG, NKG, TLH, VIS all soared over 4%, while POM even hit its upper limit, up 6.7%.
On the contrary, a host of small and medium real estate stocks including DIG, SCR, HBC, IJC, NLG, FCN kept encountering selling pressure since the start of the session and plunged sharply by 2-5%. Transport and logistics stocks experienced the same problem and closed in negative territory.
On the northern bourse, the HNX-Index lost 0.42 points, or 0.12% over the session earlier to close at 243.11, with 88 advancers and 120 decliners.
