HÀ NỘI — The market is forecast to fluctuate sideways this week as brokerages forecast shares will experience some alternate volatility and corrections.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange fell 0.45 per cent to close at 974.14 points on Friday.

The VN-Index declined nearly 0.56 per cent in the total two trading sessions last week.

“The VN-Index will possibly fluctuate in the area between 980 points and 965-968 points early next week. We expect that the market will see better movements toward the weekend and pass the above resistance zone, heading toward 986-992 points in the short run,” Bảo Việt Securities said in its daily report.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost by 0.12 per cent to end the week at 106.87 points.

The HNX-Index slumped by total 0.55 per cent last week.

“I think shares will move sideways next week and witness wide divergence between stock groups as the market has seen little supportive information recently. Cash flow was still weak, which shows that investors remain sceptical about market trading. However, the opportunity will still appear in some individual stocks,” said Nguyễn Thế Minh, head of analysis at Yuanta Securities Vietnam Co.

Ngô Quốc Hưng, professional senior market researcher, Market Strategy Division, MBS Securities said the annual general meeting (AGM) season was about to finish, investors were standing on the side-lines to observe the market and they are unwilling to come back in when the market prospect is unclear.

BIDV Securities Company (BSC) said investors seemed to keep waiting for more support signals when the liquidity continued to remain low.

According to BSC, the evolution of the Sino-US trade negotiation process, whose official results will be announced on May 10 and the FED’s maintaining interest rates, will be a market impact factor in the short and medium term.

Việt Dragon Securities Company (VDSC) said in its daily report that indexes would continue going down on moderate volumes.

“The short-term recovery is weakening and the two indexes may fall back to their support areas again. Traders should maintain a balance portfolio between stock and cash and wait for a break to determine the next trend,” VDSC said

Trading liquidity remained low last week, indicating investors were unwilling to trade due to the uncertainty of local stocks.

An average of nearly 178.8 million shares was traded in each session of last week on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ3.7 trillion (US$156 million).

According to Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities JSC (SHS), investors seem not ready to return to the market after the holiday period as there were only two trading sessions ahead of the following weekend.

This pushed liquidity below the 20-day average amount, SHS said.

The insurance industry index remained the worst-performing sector last week as it slumped 5.1 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The sector was dragged down by Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH), whose shares hit the daily limit decline of 6.9 per cent on Friday. BVH shares lost a total of 13.9 per cent last week.

Mining was also one of the declining industries in the market last week, with PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS) and PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD) both dropping more than 1 per cent last Friday.

Food-beverage and securities sectors performed well, with dairy firm Vinamilk (VNM), Masan Group (MSN), Saigon Securities Company (SSI) and Hồ Chí Minh City Securities Corporation (HCM) all increasing, helping narrow the market decline.

The banking group witnessed wide divergence among groups of stocks. Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development (BID) and Vietinbank (CTG) decreased, while Sài Gòn Thương Tín Commercial Joint Stock Bank (STB), Techcombank (TCB) and Military Bank (MBB) climbed.

As for updates on Q1 2019 business results, 444 companies published results (accounting for 83.16 per cent of market capitalisation of HoSE and HNX), according to Bảo Việt Securities Company (BVSC).

Sectors with higher profit growth in the first quarter than the same period last year included retail (23.34 per cent), information technology (22.86 per cent), and banking (11.31 per cent).

In retail, Mobile World Group (MWG) shares achieved a notable profit growth rate of 28.86 per cent with improved net profit margin, while in information technology, FPT Corporation (FPT) saw profit growth of 23.04 per cent.

Up to now, 12 banks have released financial statements for the first quarter of 2019. Eight recorded profit growth and only four had a decline in profit compared to the same period last year.

The profit growth of banks (with financial statements published) has reached 11.31 per cent, including Vietcombank (VCB) (34.34 per cent), Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) (47.74 per cent), Tiền Phong Bank (TPB) (33.04 per cent), Military Bank (MBB) (24.77 per cent), and Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) (19.34 per cent). — VNS