HANOI: Vietnam’s benchmark VN Index fell 2.68 percent at the break on Friday, trimming losses in early trade as investors sold energy and banking stocks among other blue chips, lifting volumes.
Analysts and traders attributed the decline in the index, which dropped as much as 4.3 percent during Friday’s morning session, to the devaluation of the Vietnamese dong earlier this week and falling global oil prices.
“The fall came as no surprise as the market at the moment has to face a bunch of bad news,” said Tran Minh Hoang, head of the market strategic and economic analysis department at Vietcombank Securities.
Oil prices resumed their downward trend on Friday, pulled lower by weaker global stock markets and a sharp contraction in China’s manufacturing activity, with the U.S. benchmark on track for its longest weekly losing streak since 1986.
On Wednesday, Vietnam lowered the dong by 0.99 percent and widened the dollar/dong trading band for the second time this year to 3 percent from 2 percent.
PetroVietnam Gas tumbled 6.37 percent along with several energy stocks. VietinBank dropped 4.66 percent and Vietcombank, the country’s second-largest listed firm by market value, fell 2.56 percent.
The index has lost a combined 10 percent since Aug. 12 when the central bank doubled the dollar/dong trading band. Volumes jumped to 125.7 million shares by midday, above the five-day average of 109.45 million shares, Thomson Reuters data showed.
