Investors at the trading centre of Saigon Securities’ branch in Hanoi (Source: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam’sstock market advanced for a third day on the two local exchanges on December 16,driven by domestic purchases of local shares on the day foreign funds finishedtheir portfolio review.
The benchmark VN Index on the HCMStock Exchange rose 1.4 percent to close at 675.16 points. The southern marketindex has gained 3 percent in the last three sessions.
The HNX Index on the Hanoi StockExchange added 1.1 percent to end at 79.71 points, up total 2.3 percent afterthree trading days.
Compared to the previous tradingweek, the VN Index was 1.8 percent higher while the HNX Index inched up 0.1 percent.
More than 210.5 million shares wereexchanged on the two local bourses, worth 3.73 trillion VND (165.7 million USD).
Market trading liquidity increasedfrom the previous day’s numbers with an increase of around 24 percent in bothtrading volume and value.
Sacombank (STB) was the most activestock with nearly 21 million of its shares being traded. STB closed up 2.5 percent.
Strong purchases by domesticinvestors were the major factor that lifted the stock market after they managedto absorb the shares sold by foreign investors when exchange-traded funds(ETFs) completed reviewing their portfolios for this year. Meanwhile, foreigninvestors made a net sell value of nearly 280 billion VND.
The most important factor for strongpurchasing from domestic investors was their high confidence after the UScentral bank on late December 14 decided to raise its short-term rate by a quarterpercentage point to 0.5 percent, marking the first rate hike since December2015.
“The Fed’s decision had littleimpact on the stock market,” Bao Viet Securities Corp (BVSC) said in a note.“Global markets, before and after the Fed meeting, have had little changed,proving that investors are quite calm on the decision.”
In Vietnam’s stock market, investorshave priced in the negative impact of the US rate hike on the exchange betweenthe Vietnamese dong and the dollar, BVSC said.
“The rate hike has clearedinvestors’ worry and the movement of the local stock market in the next threemonths will depend on the country’s macro-economic indicators such as GDPgrowth, inflation, forex rates and companies’ fourth-quarter performances.” —VNA
