Vietnamese shares dropped further on Monday as worries about the developing coronavirus pandemic and its economic impacts dominated the news.

 

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange lost 1.83 per cent to end at 747.86 points.

 

The VN-Index lost a total of 14.5 per cent last week.

 

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange was down 1.74 per cent to close at 99.62 points.

 

The northern market index tumbled a total of 10.8 per cent last week.

 

Nearly 333.5 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VNĐ5 trillion (US$215.7 million).

 

The figure included more than 247 million shares being traded through the order-matching method, worth VNĐ3.43 trillion.

 

Selling pressure pounded large-cap stocks and dragged the VN30-Index and HNX-Index down 2.58 per cent and 0.74 per cent, respectively.

 

In the VN30 basket, 24 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity declined while only four advanced.

 

Phú Nhuận Jewellery JSC (PNJ), sugar producer Thành Thành Công-Biên Hòa JSC (SBT) and VPBank (VPB) were hammered as they plunged 6.9-7.0 per cent each.

 

Other large-cap stocks that were also hit strongly by selling pressure included Vietinbank (CTG), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), HDBank (HDB) and Coteccons Construction Corp (CTD).

 

Market sentiment remained weak despite the US Federal Reserve cutting its lending rate to near zero per cent on Sunday, MB Securities Co (MBS) said in a note.

 

Similar actions taken by other central banks was not enough to boost market sentiment.

 

Unpredictable developments of the coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 and its impact on the global economy and equity markets were weighing on investor sentiment, MBS said.

 

Foreign investors were net-sellers, adding to market woes, the company said.

 

Foreign investors on Monday net-sold a total of VNĐ420 billion. They have offloaded a total of nearly VNĐ4 trillion this month and nearly VNĐ5.15 trillion since the beginning of the year.

 

Monday's decline proved investors were still panicked that the disease would last longer than expected and a global economic recession was likely, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its daily report.

 

The Vietnamese market would continue to struggle in the short term until positive signs appeared in the fight against COVID-19, the company forecast. — VNS