Vietnamese shares stuttered on Tuesday amid profit-taking as investors looked for a way to lock in profits following recent market rallies.

 

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange inched up 0.21 per cent to end at 767.41 points.

 

The VN-Index had increased by a total of 1.25 per cent in the last two days.

 

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange finished at 107.15 points, a slight decrease from Monday’s close of 107.16 points.

 

The HNX-Index had gained a total of 1.56 per cent in eight straight days since April 1.

 

Nearly 323 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VNĐ4.66 trillion (US$198.6 million).

 

Of the total, nearly 279.5 million shares were traded via matched orders, worth VNĐ3.83 trillion.

 

Driving the market up were information and technology firms, securities companies and food and beverage producers.

 

Investors are betting those firms will release good earnings reports for the first quarter of 2020 despite the social distancing order and coronavirus outbreak, according to securities companies.

 

Shares of leading companies in those industries such as tech group FPT Corp (FPT), consumer firm Masan (MSN) and HCM City Securities Corp (HCM) rose strongly on Tuesday.

 

FPT shares soared 6.5 per cent, Masan shares jumped nearly 5.0 per cent and HCM City Securities shares gained 2.6 per cent.

 

SSI Securities’ research unit said in a recent corporate earnings report that Masan would announce a sharp increase in Q1 revenue since consumption had grown during the first quarter due to the spread of the disease.

 

In addition, as people and companies were forced to work from distance, they were looking for technological solutions provided by IT businesses.

 

But many large-cap stocks struggled with rising profit-taking pressure after they had made strong rallies, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in a note.

 

Among those stocks were aviation firm Vietjet (VJC), lenders Vietinbank (CTG), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), and Vietcombank (VCB), and petrol firm Petrolimex (PLX).

 

Vietinbank recently cut its total credit growth forecast to 4-8.5 per cent in 2020 from the previous forecast of 6-10 per cent. The bank is also unsure about this year’s earnings targets due to COVID-19.

 

“Stocks are being divided and it is getting harder to be profitable,” TCSC said. “Investors are turning more cautious.”

 

“The VN-Index may keep increasing to 780 points but there will be struggles, especially for those with short-term trading appetites,” the company said. – VNS