May 13, Stock market appears new bottom level, poised lower

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
After the week early session, the stock market fell from the 500-point threshold and once again there appeared a new bottom level instead of the previous 496.64 points. The falling impetus is to be continued today and marks the seven consecutive declining session of the stock market.

The VN-Index shed additional 8.12 pts or 1.65% points to 483.92 pts on extremely low demand compared to supply, and many now fear the market will further head south rather than bottom out soon.

Closing the first order matching, VN Index tumbled 7.27 pts with the trade of only over 350,000 shares and fund certificates for more than 14 billion dong.

Stepping to the second phase, all purchase orders were matched while the supply remained large until the end of the session.

During the session, only over one million shares and fund certificates were matched with a total value of nearly 40 billion dong. Over 40 share codes had no transaction.

No share code saw a rise in prices, eight namely BT6, HAX, HDC, ST8, TNA, VIS, VNE and VTC unchanged, 144 decreased and 143 of which plunged to the floor prices.

Only two stood at the comparative prices, including VTB of Tan Binh Electronics JSC and SGT of SaigonTel.

In terms of matching order trade, all shares witnessed a strong reduction. PetroVietnam Fertiliser and Chemicals (DPM), the most active share code recorded a trade of 230,630 shares changing hands, STB of Sacombank with 120,780 shares, SSI with 97,600 shares, VHC with 85,100 shares and VHG with 51,650 shares being traded.

Foreign investors continued reducing their purchase power. During the session, they bought 35 share codes with over 300,000 shares including 80,260 DPM coded shares, 80,000 VHC coded shares, 50,000 VHG coded shares and 31,010 NKD coded shares.

Regarding the northern bourse, the HaSTC-Index today continued falling 3.41 points or 2.25% to close at 147.86 pts with a total market trade of 535,700 shares for nearly 17.655 billion dong, including 347,800 shares traded under the quotation method for about 11.394 billion dong.

There were 10 share codes unchanged in prices while only three others increased, and the remaining 123 share codes declining. Three gainers included HPC up 1.84% from the previous session on a trade of 18,000 shares, VC3 up 0.34% on trade of 300 shares and VTL surging 0.49% with a trade volume of 1,100 shares. Meanwhile, prices of DTC, HSC, HUT, KBC, NPS, S55, SD3, SNG, VDL, and VTS unchanged.

ACB, BVS, MIC topped the decliners, particularly ACB fell 2.99%, BVS -3%.

Many investors, discouraged by the stocks’ poor performance, have sold their shares and decided to leave the stock market.

The foreign investors who bought in a large number of shares earlier were affected by the mood of their domestic peers and bought fewer shares than usual.

This is a difficult time for the stock market as it is impossible to predict how low the VN-Index can drop or when the government will be able to curb inflation, a key reason for the market’s weakness.