The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the VN-Index is based, was predominantly red with 253 stocks losing and 158 gaining.
The bourse is seeing some of the busiest sessions in the past week with daily trading volume consistently totaling around VND7 trillion ($301 million). This session liquidity was VND7.95 trillion, with just under half of it going towards the VN30 basket of HoSE’s 30 largest capped stocks.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic shook Vietnam’s equity markets, daily trading volume usually hovered between VND3-4 trillion, while in quiet periods, such as the month before Lunar New Year, as well as when Vietnam first closed off its borders in February as a pandemic response, trading could go as low as VND2 trillion per day.
According to analysts, the slight dip of the VN-Index this session was due to investors trying to cash in on short-term gains after the market gained over 10 points in the past three sessions.
The VN30-Index this session shed 0.12 percent, with 19 tickers down and 9 up.
Private banks were some of the worst performers this session. Topping losses were TCB of Techcombank and EIB of Eximbank, down 2.1 percent and 1.7 percent respectively.
VPB of VPBank slipped 1.3 percent, STB of Sacombak 1.1 percent, and HDB of HDBank fell 0.8 percent.
Vietnam’s public lenders did slightly better, with VCB and BID of giants Vietcombank and BIDV edging down 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent respectively, CTG of VietinBank adding 0.6 percent, while MBB of mid-sized Military Bank grew 0.3 percent.
Food and beverage blue chips were also some of the biggest losers. SAB of major brewer Sabeco and STB of agricultural firm TTC-Sugar both dropped 1.1 percent, VNM of dairy giant Vinamilk, a ticker which foreign investors have been offloading in the past week, shed 1 percent.
MSN of food conglomerate Masan Group, however, bucked the trend by leading gains with 3.2 percent.
Other major losers this session included several firms in real estate, namely KDH of Khang Dien House, TCH of Hoang Huy Group, and VHM of Vinhomes which were down 1.4 percent, 1.4 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.
The biggest winners this session were stocks of retailers. PNJ of jewelry retailer Phu Nhuan Jewelry climbed 2.8 percent, MWG of electronics retailer Mobile World was up 1.8 percent, while FPT of IT services giant FPT, which also operates an online marketplace, added 1.4 percent.
HPG of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group, up 1.1 percent, and GAS of energy giant PetroVietnam Gas, up 0.7 percent, were the other notable gainers on the VN30.
Meanwhile, the HNX-Index for the Hanoi Stock Exchange, home to mid- and small-capped stocks, shed 0.38 percent, while the UPCoM-Index for the Unlisted Public Companies Market was down 0.66 percent.
Foreign investors were net sellers for the eleventh consecutive session to the tune of over VND120 billion on all three bourses. Again, the most net sold stocks were VNM of Vinamilk and BID of BIDV.