VN-Index inches down over U.S. bank collapse

The VN-Index, which represents the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), dropped 0.2 points, or 0.02%, to close at 1,052.8 on Monday on negative information from the collapse of two U.S. banks.

The main bourse saw more than 625 million shares changing hands for over VND11.2 trillion ($475.18 million), a rise of 28.7% from the previous session. There were 114 tickers gaining and 288 losing.

Blue chips were the main support for the benchmark index as the VN30 index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest-cap stocks, went up 2.87 points to 1,050.07.

Most tickers in the basket showed positive performance, with VPB of VPBank gaining 6.01%, VHM of Vinhomes 4.4%, VRE of Vincom Retail 3.9%, and NVL of Novaland Group 3.29%.

Notably, VPB was the only gaining stock in the banking group, which was most impacted by the collapse of the two U.S. banks, namely Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

Its increase was attributed to the information the Vietnamese bank is in the final stages of a deal to sell a 15% stake to Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. for about $1.4 billion.

In the mid-cap group, aviation, retail, construction and industrial real estate stocks closed in red.

Foreign investors continued to be net purchasers for the fifth consecutive session to the tune of nearly VND800 billion ($33.9 million) on the HoSE, nearly double the figure of the previous session. They mainly net bought HPG and HSG of steel makers Hoa Phat and Hoa Sen, VHM and VRE.

The HNX-Index on the Hanoi bourse went down 2.01 points to 205.85, while the UpCOM-Index fell 0.39 points to 76.83 on the unlisted public company market.