Local investors seem to be paying more attention to what’s going on in the global market rather than the better-off local economy, sending the VN-Index down by 3.16 percent to 384.61 after two upward sessions.


The HCM Stock Exchange on Oct. 16 saw 119 of 160 listed shares decline, 25 codes rise and 14 close unchanged.


Almost all blue chips dove on Oct. 16, dragging the market index down with them.


Trading volume was nearly half of Wednesday’s, at 16.49 million shares, equivalent to a total value of 483.96 billion VND (28.81 million USD).


STB Sacombank saw 2.26 million shares change hands, while other active shares included SAM of Cable and Telecom Materials and HPG and Hoa Phat Group, although they had less than 1 million shares traded each.


Overseas traders perked up, purchasing 5.02 million shares on the local exchange, up from over 2 million shares on Wednesday. This sector focused on some blue chips such as PVD of PetroVietnam Drillings, DPM of Phu My Fertiliser and VNM of Vinamilk.


In Hannoi, the HASTC-Index lost 5.93 percent to 124.28, with half of Wednesday’s trading volume at 7.93 million shares.


This figure represented a turnover of 216.58 billion VND (12.89 million USD), of which financial stocks like ACB of Asia Commercial Bank, PVS of PetroVietnam Securities and KLS of Kim Long Securities contributed significantly.


Many investors at An Binh Securities said that worldwide stock activity has recently discouraged buyers.


Asian stocks plummeted, led by the largest single-day decline of the Nikkei of 11.4 percent, as fears grew of a more protracted and sharper global slowdown than initially expected, according to AFP reports.


“It’s not a good sign when global investors sell equities en mass. Something bad is going to happen to the US economy, may be a real crisis,” said Phan Thu Huong, an An Binh Securities member.


Nguyen Son, head of State Securities Commission’s Market Development Department, said that the connection between the US and Vietnam was not obvious, and the impact should be insignificant.


“Local investors should pay attention to internal economic factors which are getting better. Then they can make reasonable decisions with securities investment on the local exchange,” he said.