VN-Index crosses 1,000 points threshold after 5 months

By Minh Son   March 12, 2019 | 05:21 pm PT
VN-Index crosses 1,000 points threshold after 5 months
A man looks at a display board showing stock market prices inside a brokerage. Photo by Reuters
An afternoon surge in bank stocks lifted the VN-Index above 1,000 points for the first time since October 2018. 

By the end of Tuesday's afternoon session, Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index closed at 1,001.32 points, an increase 16.72 points or 1.7 percent. 

The VN30-Index, which represents 30 stocks with the highest capitalization on the market, increased by 13.62 points (1.49 percent) to nearly 930 points. Green was also the main color on the smaller bourses, the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) and the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM), which saw 1.14 percent and 0.95 percent increases respectively. 

Banking stocks were the highlight of the session, especially among the three biggest lenders in Vietnam in terms of assets. BID shares of BIDV saw a 5.5 percent growth; CTG shares of VietinBank, 4.5 percent; and VCB shares of Vietcombank, 3.5 percent. All three banks are state-owned. 

Appreciations in Vietnam’s biggest blue chip stocks continued to sustain growth for the whole market. VHM, the real estate branch of Vietnam’s biggest private conglomerate Vingroup, grew by 2.6 percent this session, and sister company Vincom Retail (VRE) was up 3.4 percent. 

The other increases were seen for Sabeco, Vietnam’s biggest brewer (SAB up 2.9 percent), tech giant FPT (FPT up 4.5 percent), and dairy firm Vinamilk (VNM up 1 percent).

Over 200 stocks rose this session, almost double the number of stocks that declined. Particularly in the VN30 group, the basket of highest market cap stocks, only 3 stocks saw decreases, the remaining 27 were in green.

Foreign investors were net buyers again this session, with total net purchase volume of VND28.97 billion ($1.25 million) on Tuesday, although this number was far lower than when the VN-Index first began its resurgence after a one week break for Tet, Vietnam's biggest national holiday, which fell in early February.

The only anomaly of this upward trend was YEG shares of multi-channel digital media group Yeah1, whose stock registered a surplus of 150,000 shares (unmet sell orders) at the end of the session. The market capitalization of this stock has dropped by over 35 percent since March 4, when YouTube, a major revenue driver for the corporation, unilaterally terminated all content hosting contracts with it.  

 
 
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