Ho Chi Minh City stocks lost further ground Thursday
as investor confidence was shattered by the fact that the market has
plummeted to its lowest level in three years.
The VN-Index lost 8.2 points, or 2.6 percent, to close
at 303.54, the lowest since November 24, 2005. Of the index members, 22
advanced, 137 declined, and eight were unchanged.


“Investors are weary now as the market declined to its
lowest level in three years,” Bloomberg quoted Ngo Tuan, deputy
director of Hanoi-based Kim Long Securities Corp. as saying. “The
problem is that there is no clear-cut explanation for the downtrend as
we have not got any bad news about the economy recently. The US market,
which influences the index, has also recovered.


“Foreigners were net sellers and that pulled down the
index. It may be too negative to talk about 200 points in the near
future but it is almost impossible to understand the market at the
moment.”


Foreign investors notched up a negative figure of VND65 billion (US$4 million).


Sentiment on the Hanoi stock exchange was also nervous as the HaSTCIndex continued to fall below the 100-point mark.


The index, a gauge of 161 firms listed on the Hanoi
Securities Trading Center, closed at 97.61 points, showing a decline of
1.96 percent from Wednesday.


Nguyen Hai Son, a broker at FPT Securities Co., said
foreigners’ heavy sell-off and the fact that no institutional investors
participated in the market sank stocks.


Foreign players bought for a mere VND1.79 billion while selling stocks worth VND17.57 billion.