VN-Index suffers sharpest fall in three months

The VN-Index, which represents the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), plunged 12.96 points, or 1.14%, to close at 1,125.39 on Thursday, ending its seven-session gaining streak and marking its sharpest drop since late March.

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), shown by the index, saw up to 361 losers, four times higher than the gainers. Its trading value hit VND17.3 trillion ($734 million), a slight drop of VND600 billion ($25.45 million) from the previous session.

Blue chips were the main force dragging down the main index as their VN30 index lost nearly 16 points with up to 28 tickers declining.

All the stock groups closed in the red, with materials, industry, finance, and real estate having the most negative impacts on the market.

DIG of real estate developer DIG Corp and HPG of steel giant Hoa Phat suffered the strongest selling pressure, falling 5.8% and 3%.

DIG led the HCMC bourse in trading value with over VND1.04 trillion ($44.12 million), followed by HPG with VND960 billion ($40.73 million). DIG’s sharp fall was attributed to the company's failure to hold its annual general meeting on Wednesday because not enough shareholders took part in the meeting as ruled.

Foreign investors were net purchasers on the HoSE for the second session to the tune of about VND115 billion ($4.88 million).

HPG still topped the list of stocks most net bought by foreign investors with nearly VND182 billion ($7.72 million).

The HNX-Index on the Hanoi bourse went down 2.77 points to 227.48, while the UpCOM-Index on the unlisted public company market dropped 0.36 points to 85.63.