After losing nearly 17 points in the early afternoon session as the news broke, the index bounced back and narrowed the loss to 4.18 points by the end of the trading day, closing down 0.46 percent to 909.91 points.
Analysts had said they expect the VN-Index to overcome the short-term resistance level of 915 points in the last trading day of the week. The VN-Index had in fact done so in the morning session, at which point tickers in the green outnumbered those in the red by three to one.
However, news that U.S. President Donald Trump had tested positive for Covid-19 came in just as Vietnam’s bourses broke for lunch and caused an immediate reaction, with the VN-Index dipping slightly into the red. When the market reopened at 1 p.m., it plunged as low as 897 points.
The news was met with similar reactions in global markets, with U.S. equity futures down immediately on the news. As of 1 p.m, S&P 500 futures fell 1.3 percent and Nasdaq-100 sank 1.6 percent, while in Europe, the FTSE 100 lost 0.6 percent, and the German DAX slipped 0.7 percent.
At the close of Friday, the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the VN-Index is based, saw 294 tickers lose and 106 gain.
Total trading volume was VND8.6 trillion ($369.98 million), the highest in the past month not counting sessions where major stake sales were transacted via the put-through method.
The VN30-Index for the stock market’s 30 largest caps dropped 0.7 percent, with 21 tickers losing and 5 gaining.
Topping losses was REE of appliances of Refrigeration Electrical Engineering, down 3.9 percent, followed by stocks of two private banks, STB of Sacombank and VPB of VPBank, down 2.2 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.
In the same sector, TCB of Techcombank fell 1 percent and HDB of HDBank by 0.4 percent, while EIB of Eximbank kept its opening price.
VHM of real estate developer Vinhomes and VRE of mall operator Vincom Retail were some of the biggest losers, slipping 1.6 percent and 1.4 percent respectively, while VIC of Vingroup, their parent company, was one of five that gained with 1.6 percent.
Of Vietnam’s three biggest state-owned lenders by assets, VCB of Vietcombank shed 0.9 percent and BID of BIDV was down 0.7 percent while CTG of VietinBank rose 1.3 percent.
Other major losers included MSN of food conglomerate Masan Group, down 1.5 percent, VNM of dairy giant Vinamilk, 1.2 percent, HPG of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group, 1.1 percent, and PNJ of jewelry retailer Phu Nhuan Jewelry, also 1.1 percent.
POW of electricity generator PetroVietnam Power topped gains with 2.9 percent, followed by SBT of agricultural firm TTC-Sugar, with 2.9 percent and TCH of truck dealer Hoang Huy Group with 0.7 percent.
Meanwhile, the HNX-Index for the Hanoi Stock Exchange, home to mid- and small-capped stocks, added 1.16 percent, while the UPCoM-Index for the Unlisted Public Companies Market fell 0.37 percent.
Foreign investors were again net sellers to the tune of nearly VND310 billion on all three bourses. The most net sold stocks were VNM of Vinamilk and CTG of VietinBank.