VN-Index hits 4-month low on sell-off force

Logo of Vietcombank outside its building on Trần Hưng Đạo Street, Hà Nội. Shares of the lender plummeted more than 1.6 per cent on Thursday, leading the market's downtrend. — VNS Photo Ly Ly Cao

HÀ NỘI — Shares extended losses for the fourth day in a row as many pillars faced strong sell-off, while foreign investors continued to be net buyers. 

The market’s benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) fell for the fourth straight day to the lowest since June 1, losing its key level of 1,100 points. 

It closed Thursday at 1,087.85, a 15.55 point decrease, or 1.41 per cent. 

On the southern market, 245 stocks declined and 88 edged higher, while liquidity fell deeply to VNĐ13.7 trillion (US$558.3 million) from over VNĐ20 trillion of the previous session. 

The VN30-Index also dipped 20.67 points, or 1.84 per cent, to 1,104.89 points. Twenty-three ticker symbols went down, while only four ticked higher and three stayed flat. 

The current long losing streak has not been enough to stimulate bottom-fishing cash flow.

According to the Saigon - Hanoi Securities JSC (SHS), the VN-Index’s downtrend is not over. 

“For the mid-term, we expect the index will form a new base in a range of 1,100-1,25 points thanks to its good accumulated based in the previous uptrend wave,” SHS added.

However, “in a worse scenario with low probability, the market will accumulate around the previous mid-term base of 1,000-1,100 points.”

The banking industry led the bearish trend today as Vietcombank (VCB) posted the biggest loss of 1.63 points, followed by VPBank (VPB) down 4.67 per cent. 

Other dominators of the market’s down risks, such as Vinamilk (VNM), Vinhomes (VHM), Masan Group (MSN), PV Gas (GAS), Mobile World Investment Corporation (MWG) and Vingroup (VIC), all fell at least 1.3 per cent. 

After performing positively on Wednesday, the securities stock group reversed course and faced strong selling pressure. Shares of SSI Securities Corporation (SSI), VNDirect Securities Corporation (VND), SHS, MB Securities Company (MBS), Hồ Chí Minh Securities Corporation (HCM) and VIX Securities JSC (VIX) were down in a range of 3-5 per cent. 

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index fell further to 223.45 points, down 3.66 points, or 1.61 per cent. 

During the session, more than 83.1 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth over VNĐ1.55 trillion. 

A positive signal today was the inflow of foreign capital. Foreign investors continued to inject nearly VNĐ289 billion into the two main exchanges. 

In particular, they net bought a value of VND271.86 billion on HoSE and nearly VNĐ17 billion on HNX.