An employee of HCMC Securities Corporation monitors stock prices on a computer screen. The VN-Index of the Hochiminh Stock Exchange lost 1.33% today, February 24 – PHOTO: THANH HOA
HCMC - The VN-Index of the Hochiminh Stock Exchange lost 1.33%, or 15.63 points, on Wednesday to end at 1,162.01 points in a session that a system error clogged the at-the-close phase.
The market barely fluctuated in the morning. Early in the afternoon, the VN-Index suddenly lost over 23 points to below 1,155 points. The strong cash flow then helped the benchmark index recover. However, a technical error occurred, clogging trade after 2 p.m.
The southern market saw losing stocks far outnumber winners by 357 to 93. There were 603 million shares worth over VND15 trillion changing hands, falling slightly in volume and 2.6% in value against the session earlier.
Among bluechips, only steelmaker HPG, lenders VIB and CTG, petroleum stock PLX and aviation stock HVN gained ground.
CTG was the biggest gainer, rising 1.21% to VND37,500. The others increased less than 1%, with HPG edging up 0.69% to VND43,600, PLX up 0.88% to VND57,300, VIB up 0.54% to VND37,400 and HVN up 0.7% to VND28,800.
In contrast, property stock VIC lost 1.64% to end at VND108,200 and lender VCB fell 1.9% to VND98,000. Bluechips losing over 2% included housing developer VHM and lender BID, which went down 2.37% to VND102,800 and 2.16% to VND43,050, respectively.
HPG took the lead by liquidity with 27.3 million shares changing hands, followed by lenders STB, MBB and ACB, with 24.7 million, 19.9 million and 18.7 million shares traded, respectively.
In the group of small and medium stocks, there were only a few stocks increasing, including industrial zone developer ITA, up 0.2% to VND6,390, real estate stock DLG, up 0.6% to VND1,820 and shipping firm VOS, up 2% to VND3,510.
However, the southern bourse saw some stocks shoot up to the ceiling prices, including TDC, HSL, SAV, NVT, RIC, LGC and SVD. RIC of Royal International Corporation shot up to the ceiling price for the 28th straight session. Since January 8, RIC has increased 542.7%.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.37%, or 0.9 point, to close at 237.89 points, with declining stocks outnumbering gainers by 111 to 84. There were 156.9 million shares worth more than VND2.45 trillion changing hands on the northern bourse, increasing 12.5% in volume and 9% in value compared with the previous session.
Some of the main draggers were petroleum stock PVS, which was down 3.5% to VND21,800 and industrial development firm IDC, dropping 3% to VND39,000.
Meanwhile, securities companies SHS and MBS expanded 2.3% to VND26,700 and 7.84% to VND22,000, respectively.
HUT, S99, BNA, UNI, EVS, MST and LIG shot up to the ceiling prices.
Lender SHB was the most actively traded stock on the northern market with 23.4 million shares changing hands. However, the stock shrank 1.8% to end at VND16,000.
