An overnight bounce in the Dow Jones encouraged domestic investors on the nation's stock exchanges yesterday, allowing the VN-Index to make a modest gain before ending the session at 497.56 points.
"Global trend are now having a major impact on domestic markets," said Nguyen Duy Tan, a broker with a Ha Noi-based securities firm.
But, Tan noted, investors remained concerned about market instability.
Buys on the HCM City Stock Exchange yesterday were focused mostly in penny stocks, with Descon Construction (DCC) and Pacific Property and Infrastructure Development (PPI) both posting a 5-per-cent increase and hitting their ceiling prices. Ocean Group (OCG) led trading on a volume of 2.9 million shares, closing up 0.87 per cent.
The overall value of trades fell 6 per cent from Tuesday's level to VND1.14 trillion (US$60 million), on a volume of 34.1 million shares.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index declined by 0.56 per cent on weak trading to end the session at 156.61 points. Only 23.3 million shares changed hands, worth a total of just VND752.7 billion ($39.6 million).
PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) continued to be the most-active share on the Ha Noi market, with 2.3 million changing hands.
The northern market saw one new listing yesterday, with Fortune Securities Company joining the board under the code PHS. PHS closed its first day of trading at VND21,000, and increase of VND1,000 per share, with 118,700 traded.
Fiachra Mac Cana, Head of research for HCM City Securities Company, wrote in a report on Tuesday that, in the absence of any major economic news, investors were looking for clues and only seemed to be able to find them in the daily fluctuations of global equity markets – creating uncertainty and increasing the volatility of Vietnamese equity markets.
Gold was putting increasing pressure on stocks as an avenue for investment, he noted.