Blue chips lead stock market surge

Cash flow returned strongly to the stock market with order-matched transactions on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) rising sharply to VND3.75 trillion ($161.16 million) from VND2.97 trillion ($127.64 million) from the previous session.

HoSE, on which the VN-Index is based, saw an overwhelming 264 tickers gaining, including 28 that hit their ceiling price, while just 83 lost. This was in stark contrast to the previous five sessions when coronavirus-induced selloffs resulted in most stocks closing in the red.

The VN30-Index for Vietnam’s 30 biggest market caps rose even further at 2.08 percent, with 24 stocks gaining and only 6 losing. Nine stocks in this basket rose over 4 percent this session.

VRE of retail corporation Vincom Retail led gains with 6.9 percent, followed by STB of private lender Sacombank, with 6.8 percent. Both stocks hit their ceiling prices this session, a relatively rare occurrence on the VN30.

The next four major gainers were private banks and oil and gas companies. VPB of VPBank added 5.6 percent, and HDB of HDBank rose 5.3 percent. GAS of PetroVietnam Gas and POW of PetroVietnam Power, two blue chips related to state-owned oil and gas group PetroVietnam, gained 5.3 percent and 5 percent respectively.

The only stock in the banking sector that lost this session was BID of BDIV, one of Vietnam’s three biggest state-owned lenders by assets, which fell 0.6 percent. The other two, CTG of VietinBank and VCB of Vietcombank, added 4.5 percent and 0.6 percent respectively.

In the other direction, ROS stocks of real estate developer FLC Faros continued to be the biggest losing stock on the VN30. However, it did not hit its floor price Thursday, as it had done for most sessions in the past month, but came close with a 6.2 percent decrease.

Other losing stocks included VIC of Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate Vingroup and biggest market cap stock on HoSE, down 0.1 percent, and MSN of food giant Masan Group, down 0.2 percent.

Meanwhile, the HNX-Index for stocks on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, Vietnam’s second main bourse for small and midcap stocks, shot up 2.57 percent, and the UPCoM-Index for unlisted public companies gained 0.73 percent.

Foreign investors continued to be net sellers on all three bourses to the tune of VND215 billion ($9.24 million). Selling pressure was focused on VIC of Vingroup and MSN of Masan Group.