A trader talks on his phone while monitoring stock prices at a securities firm in HCMC. The VN-Index rose 0.23% to 1,242.2 points at the close today, May 4 – PHOTO: THANH HOA
HCMC – The rise of many bluechips helped the benchmark VN-Index on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange reverse course to end higher today, May 4 although losing stocks outnumbered winners.
The strong selling pressure in the morning made the VN-Index lost nearly 30 points. However, bluechips became cash magnets in the afternoon and helped the benchmark index grow 0.23%, or 2.81 points, from the session earlier to close at 1,242.2 points.
There were 154 stocks rising and 263 others declining. The southern bourse saw trade volume and value increase 12% and 11% to nearly 795 million shares and VND21.4 trillion, respectively. More than 84 million shares worth VND2.26 trillion were traded in block deals.
Among bluechips, bank stocks were the best performers, with TCB and CTG soaring 5.9% to VND43,400 and 5.4% to VND43,000, respectively. MBB, TPB and VPB rose between 2% and 3%.
The major contributors also included real estate and construction stocks. Steelmaker HPG rose 2.9% to VND59,800, while housing developer KDH surged 5.1% to VND36,950 and real estate company PDR grew 4% to VND73,000. Property developer VIC reversed course to end at VND133,600, up 2%.
Besides this, financial services company TCH soared 3.9% to VND22,550 and tech firm FPT rose 2.5% to VND82,900.
Lender STB was the most actively traded stock in the VN30 basket with 54.2 million shares changing hands, followed by TCB with 32.99 million shares and HPG with 31.74 million shares. Bank stocks CTG, VPB and MBB had 24-25 million shares traded each.
In the group of speculative stocks, HQC, VIX, SJF and HAR dropped to the floor prices, while ITA, DLG, HAG, HNG, HAI, TTF, DXG, HBC and LDG lost 2-6%.
Construction firm ROS led the southern market in terms of liquidity with nearly 59.4 million shares changing hands. However, ROS dropped 6.8% to VND6,000.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 1.43%, or 4.04 points, to close at 277.71 points, with decliners outnumbering gainers by 164 to 67. There were some 102.4 million shares worth VND1.86 trillion changing hands, increasing 20% in volume and 9% in value compared with the previous session.
In the HNX30 basket, only seven stocks gained ground but none of them rose over 1%.
Lender SHB, investment and trading company TNG and petroleum stock PVS were the sharpest decliners, falling 4% to VND26,300, 2.8% to VND20,700 and 2% to VND19,700, respectively.
SHB led the northern market in terms of liquidity with more than 14 million shares changing hands, followed by food service firm KLF with 11.7 million shares and securities enterprise ART with 9.78 million shares.
