VN-Index up again before national holiday break

Trading on all of Vietnam’s stock exchanges will halt Wednesday for the National Day holiday and resume the day after.

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), Vietnam’s main bourse on which the VN-Index is based, saw 276 tickers gain and 129 lose. Total trading volume fell slightly over the previous session to VND6 trillion ($260.03 million), staying higher than last month’s VND5 trillion average.

Over half the trading volume involved stocks outside the VN30, a basket of the market’s 30 largest capped tickers, a trend observed for around three weeks now. The VN30-Index for the blue chip stocks rose 0.98 percent, with 24 gainers and four losers.

Analysts observed that stocks in the aviation sector have seen a strong resurgence this session, with HVN of national carrier Vietnam Airlines climbing 3.11 percent, VJC of budget carrier Vietjet, 2.43 percent, FLC of real estate developer FLC Group, which owns Bamboo Airways, hitting its ceiling price with a 7 percent surge, and ACV of airports operator Airports Corporation of Vietnam gaining 1.04 percent.

The aviation industry is among the industries hit hardest by the Covid-19 pandemic, with Vietnam having to ban international flights, with few exceptions, since late March.

National carrier Vietnam Airlines, in particular, had recorded a loss of VND6.6 trillion in the first half of this year and has forecast this figure to reach VND15.1 trillion by the end of the year, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic resurfaced in Vietnam on July 25.

However, Vietnam has gone three days without community transmission of the virus, and this seems to have brightened investor sentiment regarding the sector, analysts said.

Among the VN30 stocks, VIC of Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate Vingroup led gains with 3 percent, followed by VJC of Vietjet Air, up 2.4 percent, and TCB of private Techcombank, with 1.9 percent.

Of Vietnam’s three largest state-owned lenders by assets, CTG of VietinBank led gains with 1.8 percent, BID of BIDV followed with 1.1 percent, while VCB of Vietcombank kept its opening price. MBB of mid-sized Military Bank added 0.8 percent.

Results were mixed in private banking, oil and gas, and real estate groups.

In the private banking sector, STB of Sacombank rose 0.9 percent, HDB of HDBank, 0.5 percent and VPB of VPBank, 0.2 percent. EIB of Eximbank dropped 0.3 percent.

GAS of energy giant PetroVietnam Gas surged 1.8 percent, PLX of petroleum distributor Petrolimex gained 0.8 percent, while POW of electricity generator PetroVietnam Power remained flat.

The real estate sector, while mostly in the green, saw some indifferent performers. ROS of construction firm FLC Faros this session gained 1.4 percent, KDH of Khang Dien House, 0.4 percent and VHM of Vinhomes, 0.3 percent. NVL of Novaland topped losses with 1.3 percent.

MSN of food conglomerate Masan Group and SAB of major brewer Sabeco were two other tickers in the red, down 0.7 percent and 0.8 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, the HNX-Index for the Hanoi Stock Exchange, home to mid- and small-capped stocks, added 0.45 percent, and the UPCoM-Index for the Unlisted Public Companies Market slipped 0.03.

Foreign investors continued to be net sellers to the tune of VND200 billion on all three bourses. The top net sold tickers were HPG of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group, up 1.02 percent, and VCB of Vietcombank, which remained flat.