A group of investors watch stock prices move at Bao Viet Securities Company. (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) -Vietnamese shares traded sluggishly last week on the back of large-cap stocksand the current condition is expected to remain in the coming week, accordingto analysts and brokerage firms.
The benchmark VN-Index onthe HCM Stock Exchange lost 0.25 percent on October 20 to end at 826.84 points.It increased by a total of 0.7 percent week on week.
The HNX-Index on the HanoiStock Exchange dropped 0.86 percent to finish last week at 108.14 points,losing a total 1.5 percent after three sessions.
The three-day losing streakerased the entire increase of the previous three days and resulted in a weeklyloss of 0.9 percent.
An average of 226.2 millionshares was traded in each session last week, worth 4.75 trillion VND (211million USD).
The trading figuresrepresented an increase of 20 percent in volume and 26 percent in valuecompared to the previous week.
Foreign investors posted acombined net buy value of 400 billion VND on both local exchanges.
Large-cap stocks continuedto play an important role in driving the benchmark VN-Index up because the cashflow kept changing constantly among leading sectors and pushed leading stocksup.
Gaining large-cap stocksincluded financial-banking shares VPBank (VPB), Vietcombank (VCB) and Bank forInvestment and Development of Vietnam (BID), retailer Mobile World (MWG) andFLC Faros Construction Co (ROS).
VCB rose total 3.7 percentafter one week and growth rates of the remainders were 2.7 percent for VPB, 5.9percent for BID, 2 percent for MWG and nearly 24 percent for ROS.
However, convergence didnot occur between large-cap stocks and others, and the VN-Index suffered fromstrong profit-taking when it reached the 830-point level.
According to Viet DragonSecurities Co, such conditions could discourage investors, who pull money outof the market to invest it in other options. “The VN-Index signaled it wasreaching a short-term peak. The two falls at the 830-point level with hightrading liquidity could make investors feel uneasy,” it said in a note.
Sai Gon-Hanoi Securities Co(SHS) said the market showed strong divergence last week between the two stockindices, proving the market was in a high risk condition. The VN-Indexoften performed badly in November of previous years, declining for four of thelast five years, SHS said.
Nguyen The Minh, head ofthe capital market analysis at Saigon Securities Inc, told tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn ata roundtable discussion that the dependence of the VN-Index on large-cap stocksin recent days indicated its short-term growth was weakening. “Thebenchmark has likely reached its short-term peak,” Minh said, forecasting thatit would decline in November before making a slight rebound in December.
Agreeing to the idea of themarket settling at the current level, Nguyen Trung Du, head of individualclient division at HCM City Securities Co, said most stocks ran out of steamlately as their growth had been priced in earlier.
Several large-cap companiesare due to list in the fourth quarter, such as PetroVietnam Oil Corp (PV Oil),PetroVietnam Power Co (PV Power) and Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Co Ltd(BSR), which are expected to draw investor attention, Du said.-VNA
VNA
