Vietnamese stocks fell on August 11, giving back some of previous day's gains, after a dividend payment by a confectionery company led indexes lower.
Confectionery company Kinh Do Corp (KDC) fell 41 percent after trading ex-dividend, or the date on which buyers of the stock will no longer receive a previously declared dividend.
The stock fell to 28,200 VND (1.29 USD) a share from 48,200 VND (2.21 USD), decreasing the company's market capitalisation by about 4.7 trillion VND (215.6 million USD), equivalent to the money spent on the dividend payment. The company is expected to pay shareholders a cash dividend on August 21.
The VN30, which tracks the top 30 companies by market value and liquidity on the HCM Stock Exchange, shed 6.57 points, or 1.01 percent, to end at 643.42 points on August 11. The VN30 had jumped 1.8 percent on August 10.
Some country's biggest financial firms, including Vietcombank (VCB), BIDV (BID), Vietinbank (CTG) and insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), bucked the trend and posted gains.
The benchmark VN-Index, the measure of 307 stocks, dropped 1.48 points, or 0.24 percent, to close the session at 613.05 points. Among the index's stocks, 78 rose, 117 declined and 112 were unchanged.
Liquidity rose as market volume increased 30 percent over August 10, totaling over 120 million shares while the value of trades climbed 40 percent to reach 2.573 trillion VND (118 million USD).
Saigon Securities Inc (SSI) remained the most active stock by the end of the session with 7.6 million shares traded as its price went down 0.72 percent to settle at 27,400 VND (1.26 USD) a share.
The company's share had gained 3.3 percent over the past week after Nguyen Duy Khanh, a member of the company's board of director, announced SSI's new development policy would welcome deeper participation of large organisations in its operation.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was down 0.68 percent to finish the session at 83.84 points as 105 stocks fell, 78 rose and 180 were unchanged.
Trading volume in Hanoi was one fifth that of HCM City's market with 43 million shares worth 523 billion VND (24 million USD) being traded on August 11, down 10 percent in both volume and value from August 10 levels.-VNA