Vietnamese shares plummeted on January 17 as investors realised short-term profits. Worries remained that the adjusted policy on margin lending could take effect early next month. (Photo: thanhnien.vn ) Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnamese sharesplummeted on January 17 as investors realised short-term profits. Worriesremained that the adjusted policy on margin lending could take effect earlynext month.
The benchmark VN Index on the HCM StockExchange plunged 2.66 percent or 28.27 points to close at 1,034.69 points,extending its decline from a slight decrease on January 16.
The latest drop also erased all gains thebenchmark VN Index had made since January 9.
The index had the biggest loss inpercentage terms since December 11, 2017, when it fell 2.42 percent.
The benchmark’s declining rate on January17 was still below a dive of 3.07 percent made on January 18, 2016.
The minor HNX Index on the Hanoi StockExchange dropped 0.96 percent to end at 120.42 points. The northern marketindex has declined a total 1.3 percent after the last two sessions.
The two local exchanges were dominated bydeclining stocks, which outnumbered gainers by 341 to 136 and 120 remainingstocks finished flat.
Market trading liquidity remained high withmore than 409.3 million shares being traded on the two local exchanges, worth 9.85trillion VND (437.9 million USD).
The trading figures were slightly up involume, but rose 7.2 percent in value compared to the previous session.
All 20 sectors on the stock market ended innegative territory. Industry indices fell between 0.4 percent and 4.5 percent.
The worst performing sectors includedbanks, brokerage firms, construction-material producers, insurance companiesand food and beverage suppliers. The worst decliners dropped at least 5 percenteach.
They included Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank(CTG), HDBank (HDB), Saigon-Hanoi Securities (SHS), VNDirect Securities (VND),Vinacafe Bien Hoa JSC (VCF) and steel producer Hoa Sen Group (HSG).
The large-cap VN30 Index that tracks theperformance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation also plunged 3 percentto 1,030.00 points with 90 percent of the stocks included in the index falling.
According to Saigon-Hanoi Securities (SHS),the sharp drop of the benchmark VN Index proved investors had become lessconfident in the hope the benchmark index would overcome the level of 1,065points.
“As the benchmark index has increasedsubstantially in the recent weeks and offered profits for investors, it willlikely trigger investors to increase selling to lock in profits,” SHS said inits daily report.
VPBank Securities Company (VPBS) attributedthe market slump to investor concerns over the possibility that the amendedpolicy on tightening margin lending at securities firms would be released inearly February.
“Though the State Securities Commission hasraised its voice over the issue to cushion investor confidence, marketsentiment will not get back to its normal status as the absorption of themarket towards local stocks would decline substantially and investors arediscouraged from participating in the market,” VPBS said. - VNA
VNA
