| Market falls as investors fret about correction | |
Investors rushed to lock in profit after a long rising streak since early last week until this Wednesday (23 Sep 2009), offloading huge volumes of shares, forcing the market down despite the demand was still strong. Ending the session on Thursday (24 Sep 2009), the VN-Index lost 7.33 points, or 1.25%, to 574.78 points. Trade on the southern market also fell, with 71.7 million shares changing hands worth VND3.8 trillion, falling 21% and 14% respectively. This level was still fairly high, reflecting the confidence among many investors on the rebound of the market as forthcoming third-quarter corporate reports will likely show upbeat performance. The market opened down 5.28 points right in the first matching phase, dropped back into negative territory to 572.16 before closing the day off the lows as more short-term investors offloaded their holdings for fear of deeper correction in the days to come. Many blue-chips like BVH, PVF, DPM, VNM, STB, HPG were the major drags on the market, while several real estate stocks also ended down, including SJS, HAG, SC5, NBB, HDC. In terms of the VN index DIG, KDC, GMD and CSM made the biggest positive contribution, while VCB, VNM, HAG and CTG made the biggest negative contribution. All sectors fell. The most actively traded stock in the cash market by value was GMD which gained 3.74% to VND111,000 with 2.41 million shares traded. DIG as the second most active stock surged 4.32% to VND145,000 on volume of 1.8 million shares while SSI lost 2.44% to close at 80,000 with volume totaling 2.77 million shares seen. Foreigners were strong sellers on the market. While their buying halved on Thursday in actual terms, their selling increased sharply, resulting a net selling volume of up to VND404 billion. Fiachra Mac Cana of the HCMC Securities Corp. commented that the fall on Thursday was more like a consolidation rather than a correction. He noted that the market today “will be an interesting day as the sentiment towards the close today was inconclusive and the market’s short term direction is still quite uncertain. And as it’s a Friday to boot some investors may wish to close out positions.” The Hanoi market dipped a bit but in high turnover of VND1.55 trillion, with its HN-Index edging lower by 0.17% to close at 180.77. Foreigners accounted for 1.88% of the buying value and 3.11% of the selling value on the northern bourse. | |
| The Saigon Times Daily |
