HCMC – Losers outnumbered winners on the local stock market, but positive trading of some largecap stocks including PLX, GAS, and those in the Vingroup family helped the VN-Index of the HCMC market close up today, July 23.
With 145 advancers and 227 decliners, the benchmark index rose 1.67 points, or 0.2% over the previous session to close at its intraday high of 856.75.
However, investors’ cautious approach affected the market’s liquidity. Trading on the HCMC exchange shed 14% in volume and 11% in value versus Wednesday with some 240 million shares worth over VND3.8 trillion, including some VND493 billion worth of shares traded via put-through transactions.
In the VN30 basket, retailer VRE stole the limelight for expanding 5% to VND28,300, followed by refrigeration electrical engineering firm REE, which added 3.9%. Large caps VHM, PLX, GAS, HDB all increased over 1%, while VIC, VNM, HPG rose less than 0.7%.
By contrast, construction firm ROS shed as much as 5.8%. Securities company SSI and brewery SAB both fell over 1%. The remaining stocks in the basket dropped slightly.
Despite ending in the red, ROS led the southern bourse by liquidity with matching volume of 15.8 million shares, much higher than other actively-traded stocks such as steelmaker HPG with 10.17 million shares and retailer VRE with 7.2 million shares.
Most of speculative stocks closed in negative territory, including stocks having good liquidity such as realty trading firm HQC with over 12 million shares traded and industrial zone developer ITA with matching volume exceeding nine million shares.
As for the Hanoi market, the downtrend was established early in the day and deepened over the course of the session, as most of the big caps on the northern bourse underwent selling pressure. Two lenders SHB and ACB dipped 3.9% and 0.8%, respectively. CEO, HUT, SHS, and PVC decreased by 2%-4%.
Closing the session, the HNX-Index slid 1.45 points, or 1.26% against the previous session, to 113.87, with 64 winners and 88 losers.
