A trading day at Tân Việt Securities Co. Việt Nam's benchmark VN-Index slid on Tuesday after bouncing back strongly during the day on bargain hunting. - Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares slid on Tuesday as strong foreign selling trumped investors’ bargain-hunting efforts.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) fell 0.28 per cent to end at 745.78 points.

The VN-Index has tumbled a total of 24.8 per cent over the last six weeks to hit its lowest level since June 2017.

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange gained 1.1 per cent to close at 100.72 points.

The northern market index had decreased by a total of 13.4 per cent in the previous seven trading days starting March 6.

The market suffered a big drop in the early period of the day as market sentiment was hurt by a collapse of the US stocks and the downtrend of Asian shares.

But increased purchases for stocks at cheap prices helped boost the two indices during the day, according to MB Securities Co.

The VN-Index before lost as much as 3.48 per cent early in the day, but then climbed 3.9 per cent.

The benchmark only declined in the last-minutes as foreign investors offloaded local assets. Net foreign selling on HoSE rose 46 per cent day-on-day to nearly VNĐ560 billion.

On the two exchanges, foreign investors net-sold a total of nearly VNĐ600 billion.

Banking and brokerage stocks reversed to positive territory after sinking in the morning session, as the two sector indices rose 1.6 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively.

The best gainers in the two sectors included Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Techcombank (TCB), TPBank (TPB), HCM City Securities (HCM), Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS) and SSI Securities (SSI).

Other sectors that also saw their stocks advance were retail, energy and mining, technology, and plastics and chemicals.

On the other hand, real estate, agriculture, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and food and beverage industries weighed on market sentiment.

In those sectors, Vingroup (VIC) tumbled 4.2 per cent, brewer Sabeco (SAB) plunged 5.9 per cent, Vincom Retail (VRE) plummeted 6.8 per cent and Vinhomes (VHM) was down 2.7 per cent.

“The market became more balanced as the VN-Index narrowed some of its losses and several large-caps recovered,” Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its daily report.

“What happened on Tuesday can provide momentum tomorrow as liquidity remained high to counter strong selling caused by foreign investors,” MBS said.

In the short term, the market would still struggle with poor confidence on worries about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global economic growth, TCSC said.

Rubber group debuts

The Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG) started listing 4 billion shares on HoSE on Tuesday with code GVR.

The debut price was VNĐ11,570 per share and the company's shares may move within a margin of 20 per cent on either side.

The rubber group’s shares declined by 3.2 per cent to end Tuesday at VNĐ11,200 apiece.

VRG was equitised in 2018 and began trading its shares on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) on March 21, 2018.

In 2017-18, the company earned total revenues of VNĐ22.4 trillion and 23 trillion. Post-tax profits were VNĐ3.93 trillion and VNĐ3.33 trillion, respectively.

In the first nine months of 2019, the group recorded total revenue of VNĐ14.78 trillion and post-tax profit at VNĐ2.3 trillion.

VRG targets its total revenue and post-tax profit to rise to VNĐ24.65 trillion and VNĐ4.03 trillion in 2020. – VNS