VN-Index continues its nosedive

344 stocks lost and just 53 gained on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), Vietnam’s main bourse on which VN-Index is based, with as many as 117 hitting their floor prices.

Order-matched transactions were VND4.35 trillion ($195.07 million), the highest level in the past month. Transaction volume averaged VND2.77 trillion ($124.22 million) per session in February.

The VN30-Index for the bourse’s 30 biggest market caps also tumbled 5.14 percent, with 29 stocks in the red and one keeping its opening price. 16 tickers in this basket closed at their floor prices this session.

Six stocks which closed at their floor price belonged to the banking sector, three of them state-owned lenders. BID of BIDV and VCB of Vietcombank, two of Vietnam’s three biggest lenders by assets, shed 7 percent and 6.9 percent respectively, while MBB of mid-sized Military Bank fell 6.9 percent.

The three mid-sized private banks to lose big were TCB of Techcombank, HDB of HDBank, and VPB of VPBank, which fell between 7 percent and 6.8 percent each.

All three oil and gas stocks on the VN30 were also among those that hit their floor prices. PLX of major petroleum distributor Petrolimex and POW of electricity generator PetroVietnam Power both dropped 7 percent, while GAS of energy giant PetroVietnam Gas shed 6.9 percent.

Three other big losers were in retail, namely MWG of electronics store chain Mobile World, PNJ of jewelry retail chain PhuNhuan Jewelry, and VRE of mall operator Vincom Retail.

MWG in particular, had its floor price Tuesday, when the Ministry of Health confirmed that one of their employees at a store in central Da Nang City had contracted the novel coronavirus, prompting Mobile World to shut down that store and also request permission from local authorities to delay their annual general meeting, set to take place on March 27.

The remaining tickers that hit floor prices included CTD of construction giant Coteccons, ROS of real estate developer FLC Faros, BVH of insurance giant Bao Viet Group, and SBT of agricultural firm TTC-Sugar.

The best performing stocks this session were MSN of food conglomerate Masan Group, which kept its opening price, NVL of real estate developer Novaland, down 0.4 percent, and EIB of private Eximbank, down 0.6 percent. 

Meanwhile, the HNX-Index for stocks on Hanoi Stock Exchange, Vietnam’s second main bourse for small and midcap stocks, shed 3.41 percent, and the UPCoM-Index for unlisted public companies lost 2.97 percent.

Foreign investors were net sellers for the 23rd consecutive session on all three bourses, with a net sell value of VND430 billion ($18.45 million).

Losses in the first four sessions this week have cumulatively wiped out around VND552 trillion ($23.69 billion) worth of market cap on all three bourses, according to data on brokerage portals.

Asian markets were also a sea of red on Thursday, with traders rushing to offload stocks after the World Health Organization officially declared Covid-19 a pandemic Wednesday.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 went down 4.41 percent, South Korea’s Kospi, 3.87 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, 3.52 percent. Mainland China’s indices Shanghai Composite and Shenzhen Component dropped 1.52 percent and 2.31 percent respectively.