East Sea tension ravages shares

Panic struck investors in the Viet Nam stock market, when it was reported that Chinese ships intentionally collided with Vietnamese vessels near a Chinese rig on Viet Nam's continental shelf.

Although the State Securities Commission tried to calm investor fears after a morning of panic trading, pledging to closely watch unusual transactions and strictly tackle manipulations, shares closed yesterday with the biggest-ever loss.


The VN-Index on the HCM City Stock Exchange fell 32.88 points or as much as 5.87 per cent to end at 527.09 points, which was, however, 0.02 per cent higher than the morning closing point. On the northern bourse, the HNX-Index lost 4.9 points, or 6.4 per cent to close at 71.66 points.

The spiralling East Sea tension pushed investors into indulging in heavy sell-off until closing time.

The billboards were deep in the red. On both national stock exchanges, only 30 codes managed to advance yesterday while there were 512 losers, 333 of who declined to their floor prices.

An estimated VND63.3 trillion (US$3 billion) in market capitalisation was reported to have evaporated yesterday.

All of the southern bourse's 30 largest stocks by capitalisation and liquidity tumbled yesterday, of which, 23 codes fell to their floor prices. The VN-Index, tracking the performance of these large-cap stocks, was seen losing 34.2 points, or 5.61 per cent, to close at 575.31 points.

However, a volume of bottom-fishing capitals were adventurously injected into the market, as some investors considered the market decline a good time to buy, which helped to boost the market liquidity

On the HCM City Stock Exchange, nearly 146.5 million shares were traded, worth VND2.86 trillion (US$136.1 million), rising 180 per cent and 220 per cent, respectively, over the previous trading session.

The trading volume and value on the Ha Noi Exchange increased three times over Wednesday's trading to 106.9 million and VND1.01 trillion ($48.09 million). The HNX-Index, tracking the capital city's 30 top stocks, closed 7.71 per cent lower at 138.78 points.

Noticeably, when local investors boosted selling shares, foreign investors, seeing opportunities, were major buyers in the market yesterday with the highest net volume and value in over a month.

Their net buying volume reached more than 9.8 billion shares and the net buying value hit VND280.62 billion ($13.36 million), rising 386.85 per cent and 228.84 per cent, respectively, over the previous session.