Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnamese shares have had a rough losingweek and the next five trading sessions at least are likely to tradenegatively, according to analysts and brokerage companies.

The benchmark VN Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and theHNX Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange respectively inched down 0.2 percent and0.1 percent to close at 772.08 points and 100.86 points on August 11.

The two stock indices have posted losses of 2.6 percent and 1.5 percentin four consecutive sessions. They also declined by 2.1 percent and 1 percentfrom the previous week’s closing levels.

The decline has been attributed to investors affected by risingtensions between the US and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and byfalse news about the arrest of a former bank executive on August 9.

The loss in investor confidence as a result of the bad newsaffected local stocks, bringing the VN Index down 2.3 percent, the biggest lossin the last 20 months, and the HNX Index down 1.2 percent, costing the stockmarket 2 billion USD in market capitalisation.

Liquidity was quite low in the last two trading sessions of theweek after having risen sharply on August 9 on investors’ sell-offs of localstocks.

An average of 307.3 million shares worth 4.72 trillion VND (209.7million USD) was traded in each session on both local exchanges last week.

The global and domestic bad news also pulled down foreigninvestment. Foreign investors last week posted a total net buy value of 328billion VND, a weekly decrease of nearly 55 percent.

The banking sector was the worst-hit among 20 industries on themarket as shares of the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID)slumped 6.9 percent on August 9, and a total of 10 percent since then.

Other bank stocks also posted sharp declines the same day,remaining negative in the last three trading sessions.

According to analysts and securities companies, there is no signthat the stock market will turn positive this week as investor sentimentremains poor and there is a lack of supportive business news.

Chau Thien Truc Quynh, senior analyst at Viet Capital SecuritiesCompany, said that the Vietnamese stock market will undergo a short-termdownward trend.

Buyers were still unwilling to make new purchases as they wereconcerned about market rumours and are likely to wait till these clear up, shesaid.

The Vietnamese market was also running out of supportive businessnews as the earnings report season was ending, and it was also being affectedby the short-term declining trend in the global and regional markets, Quynhadded.

The FPT Securities Company (FPTS) said that the bad news last weekhad pulled investor confidence down strongly, and it would be hard for them toregain balance very soon. This would affect the two indices negatively, itsaid.

Sai Gon-Hanoi Securities (SHS) said in its weekly report that thebenchmark VN Index would move narrowly between 770 and 776 points on August 14before breaking this zone and heading to test the 780-point level again.

However, that would be a short-term, unstable technical recovery,SHS warned. “The short-term technical indicators for the index are still in thenegative territory, therefore, investors should not limit their purchases.”-VNA