HCMC – Despite undergoing strong profit-taking, especially by foreign investors, the benchmark VN-Index of the HCMC market continued to expand on January 12 and moved closer to the highest closing record of 1,204.33 points that was set on April 9, 2018.
With 269 stocks advancing and 178 others falling, the benchmark index gained 7.39 points, or 0.62% over the session earlier at 1,192.28. Nearly 720 million shares worth some VND15.8 trillion were transacted on the southern bourse, contracting around 15% both in volume and value against Monday. Shares traded in put-through transactions contributed over VND1 trillion to the total value.
Many big caps made stronger gains, with steelmaker HPG soaring 4.3%, financial investment company TCH and refrigeration electrical engineering firm REE adding 3.7% each. Other stocks in this group such as brewery SAB, brokerage SSI, and technology firm FPT inched up around 2%.
Regarding bank stocks, two lenders BID and VCB ended in positive territory, and EIB moved sideways. Meanwhile the remainder dropped slightly. Bank stocks weakened by profit-taking left a negative impact on the main index. However, they were major cash magnets as STB led the HCMC market by liquidity with over 27.2 million shares changing hands, MBB and TCB reported the matching volume of 16.5 million shares each. LPB, ACB and TCG saw 9-13 million shares changing hands.
In the VN-30 basket, three winners HPG, SSI, TCH were also actively traded stocks, with respective matching volume of 22.7 million, 16.5 million, and 9.78 million shares.
As for speculative stocks, construction company ROS remained outstanding in attracting cash flow with over 24 million shares traded. ROS surged 6.7% to its ceiling price.
On the northern bourse, the HNX-Index gained 2.85 points, or 1.3% against the previous session to close at its intraday high of 221.97, with 125 winners and 83 losers.
