HCMC – The VN-Index of the HCMC market reversed course to end lower today, September 22, due to increased profit-taking pressure and weakening support of bluechip stocks, after advancing for two consecutive sessions.
The benchmark index lost 1.75 points, or 0.07% against the previous session at 908.57, with 150 advancers and 246 decliners. Trading volume and value on the southern bourse contracted by nearly 1% and 13% to 401 million shares worth some VND6.7 trillion, including VND594 billion worth of shares transacted in block deals.
A clear divergence was recorded in the VN30 basket as 13 stocks won and 15 others dropped, thus not giving much support to the main index. However, most of stocks in the basket made slight gains or losses, below 2%.
Notably, lender STB remained an outstanding cash magnet. It closed at its ceiling price of VND12,550 and led the southern bourse by liquidity, with a staggering matching volume of 45.87 million shares.
Steelmaker HPG also recorded active trading with 15.28 million shares changing hands, but slipped 0.6% due to pressure from both domestic and foreign investors.
Among the speculative stocks, HSG, ASM, GEX, HQC, TTF, and PVD staged good performance, reporting matching volume of 1.7-9.9 million shares.
Meanwhile, the red blanketed a host of small and medium stocks such as ITA, HAG, HAI, FLC, ROS, NKG, AMD, and HHS which saw 1.4-12 million shares traded each.
By contrast, trading on the northern bourse was more upbeat as the HNX-Index traded in positive territory for most of the session and closed up 1.23% to its intraday high of 132.19. The Hanoi Stock Exchange saw 84 stocks winning and 83 others slipping. Strong gains of stocks in the HNX30 basket, including lenders SHB and ACB, were behind the index’s growth.
