A reduction in the retail petrol price to 20,800VND gave a small boost to the stock market, said Kim Eng Securities Coanalyst Phan Dung Khanh.
"However, as the decline was so small –only 500 VND – compared to the expectations of investors, it couldultimately prove disappointing and have an adverse effect to theirpsychology," Khanh said.
While the domestic stock market rallied,the uptrend around the world was halted by bad news from US andEuropean economies. "The measures of the US Federal Reserve in recentyears only seem to have pushed gold prices to record highs rather thanboost economic growth," said Khanh.
"Lowering interest rates when the economy is yet to fully recover will do more harm than good," he said.
Onthe HCM Stock Exchange , the VN-Index edged up 2.2 percent to concludethe day at 413.37 points. The value of trades rose 30 percent over onAug. 26's level, reaching 615 billion VND (29.9 million USD), while thevolume of trades increased by 38.4 percent to 40.7 million shares.
Ofthe 10 leading shares by capitalisation, insurer Bao Viet Holdings(BVH), real estate developer Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) and PetroVietnamFinance (PVF) all climbed to their ceiling prices.
On the HanoiStock Exchange, the HNX-Index reversed August 26's losses and gained 3percent to close at 71.33 points. Some 53.4 million shares wereexchanged for a value of 581.7 billion VND (28.2 million USD),representing a rise of 68.2 percent over August 26 in terms of value and77.4 percent in volume.
Foreign investors were net sellers on both bourses, unloading a combined net of 34.1 billion VND (nearly 1.7 million USD).
"The market will possibly tread water this week while waiting on more cash to flow in," Khanh predicted./.