Foreign investors strong net sellers as VN-Index shakes

Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index had a shaky trading week from February 19-23, with foreign investors net selling nearly VND1.46 trillion ($59.25 million) on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE).

During the Thursday session, foreign investors net sold more than VND920 billion ($37.34 million), the largest figure since the beginning of the year, focusing on HPG of steel giant Hoa Phat with 5.22 million shares net sold worth VND149.7 billion ($6.07 million).

During the week, the VN-Index, which represents the HoSE, fluctuated in a narrow range below the resistance territory of 1,235 points for the first three sessions.

In the week-ending session on Friday, the HoSE trading picked up with more than 1.3 billion shares changing hands via order matching for a value of more than VND30 billion ($1.3 billion) since the August 18, 2023 session.

The VN-Index remained in the green for most of the Friday session, but profit-taking pressure gradually increased after 2 p.m., causing the index to plunge over 15 points.

The index finished up 2.3 points week-on-week at 1,212 points. Trading value on the HoSE reached more than VND118.1 trillion ($4.8 billion), with nearly 1 billion shares traded per session on average.

The banking group had the biggest influence on the market with the majority of tickers dropping such as LPB of LPBank (-4.74%), HDB of HDBank (-3.43%), OCB of Orient Commercial Bank (-3 .18%), and EIB of Eximbank (-2.65%).

However, several codes gained strongly, surpassing their old peaks like BID of BIDV (+7.11%), VAB of VietABank (+6.25%), and TCB of Techcombank (+4.16%).

The securities group mainly fluctuated in a narrow range but was under strong selling pressure in the last session of the week. Most tickers in this group declined, with TVB of Tri Viet Securities dropping 7.44%, APG of APG Securities (-5.78%), VND of VNDirect Securities (-4.96%), and AGR of Agribank Securities (-4.34%).

Real estate stocks also performed less positively. TCH of Hoang Huy Investment Financial Services JSC fell 6.2%, DIG of DIC Corp. declined 6.1%, and PDR of Phat Dat dropped 5.72%.

Broker Saigon-Hanoi Securities (SHS) said that although the market is likely to recover, short-term investors should be cautious at present because the VN-Index has signalled a correction. Besides, opportunities for medium and long-term investments have narrowed, and investors should wait for the market to go through its short-term decline.

Vietcombank Securities (VCBS) believed that the market is still in a medium- and long-term uptrend, but there will be correction sessions with a range greater than 10 points. Therefore, the broker recommended investors take advantage of fluctuations in the coming week to continue increasing the proportion of stocks with a good accumulation base, especially those in the finance-banking and manufacturing groups.