VN-Index sees biggest foreign net sell in eight months

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the VN-Index is based, was predominantly green with 320 stocks gaining and 134 losing. Of these, 38 hit their upper limit for the day.

Total trading volume rose nearly 10 percent to VND18.7 trillion ($809.97 million), split evenly between the VN30 basket of the market’s 30 largest caps and all other stocks listed on the HoSE.

"The VN-Index is likely to face increasing corrective pressure upon nearing the 1,200-1,220 psychological resistance thresholds, given that many stocks on the market are already overbought," analysts at brokerage BVSC say in their latest report.

"Cash will diverge towards listed firms based on their 2020 final quarter financial reports, with industries such as real estate, securities, banking and steel likely to report positive business results," they add.

Contrary to the previous session where foreign investors scooped up VND623 billion worth of shares in VIC of private conglomerate Vingroup, the foreign net sell this session was valued at VND2.25 trillion.

Of this, VND1.84 trillion were of MSN stocks of food conglomerate Masan Group, whose price rose 0.8 percent, with the transactions mostly done via the put-through option. Masan has not released any statement concerning this major transaction.

As for blue chips, the VN30-Index this session outperformed the general market with a rise of 1.13 percent, with 23 stocks gaining and 6 losing.

Topping gains for the fifth session was ROS of construction firm FLC Faros, up 6.7 percent, hitting its ceiling price again.

Despite this, ROS closed at VND3,500, far below its VND12,600 IPO in 2016 and a high of VND178,000 in late 2017. The ticker has been plummeting since early 2018 as a result of increasingly poor business performance, and is now the smallest capped ticker on the VN30.

Private banks were again the best VN30 performers. STB of Sacombank surged 5 percent, HDB of HDBank, 4.1 percent, TCB of Techcombank, 3.1 percent, EIB of Eximbank, 1.9 percent, and VPB of VPBank 1.2 percent.

The real estate sector did well with KDH of Khang Dien House rising 3 percent, TCH of Hoang Huy Group, 2.7 percent and VHM of Vinhomes 2 percent. However, NVL of Novaland bucked the industry trend, topping losses with 3.6 percent.

State-owned banks recorded mixed results. Of Vietnam’s three biggest lenders by assets, CTG of VietinBank added 0.9 percent, BID of BIDV kept its opening price and VCB of Vietcombank shed 0.7 percent. MBB of mid-sized Military Bank climbed 1.3 percent.