Foreign investors net sold more than 11 million Hoa Phat shares

Stocks started this week in the red, with caution rising. The correction when reaching the 1,300-point threshold last weekend made investors worry about the old scenario repeating itself. Previously, VN-Index had challenged the 1,300-point zone 6 times but all fell back to lower levels.

While buyers hesitated, sellers did not lower prices drastically. The tug-of-war between the two sides caused the HoSE index to move sideways in the price range of 1,285-1,290 points until closing.

VN-Index closed at 1,287.94 points, down nearly 3 points (0.23%) from the previous session. VN30-Index remained almost unchanged thanks to the support of banking stocks. On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, HNX-Index and UPCOM-Index both closed below reference.

Instead of the index’s performance, the highlight of the session came from a number of key industry groups that were of interest. Steel stocks (HPG) were more positive as analysts predicted that they would benefit from the North-South high-speed railway project. According to Yuanta Securities, iron and steel accounted for the largest proportion of key raw materials, with a scale of about 51.8 billion USD of the total investment capital. The government also prioritized the use of domestic raw materials, helping steel companies expect the impact of this project on their business operations.

HPG remained green throughout the entire trading session, while other stocks such as HSG and NKG also improved. However, the growth of Hoa Phat shares was partly limited by profit-taking pressure from foreign investors. In today's session, September 30, foreign investors sold more than 12.8 million HPG shares while buying only more than 1.8 million units, with a net selling volume of about 11 million shares.

Banking stocks, the group with the highest proportion in the capitalization basket, remained the main support when the market weakened. In VN30, TPB and VPB led the increase group with an amplitude of nearly 2%. On the contrary, some codes in this group were also under adjustment pressure, such as BID, STB, ACB, VCB.

Market liquidity also decreased compared to the average of the previous weekend, reaching more than VND18,000 billion. Liquidity on the HoSE floor accounted for nearly VND16,300 billion, down about VND6,000 billion compared to the previous session, the lowest level in three weeks.

At the end of the session, HoSE had 153 stocks increasing in price, compared to 241 stocks decreasing in price. Foreign investors net sold more than 500 billion VND, the highest in more than a week.

VPB was the stock that contributed the most to the VN-Index with nearly 0.7 points when this code increased by 1.8% to 20,100 VND. On the contrary, VCB was the stock that weighed down the index the most when it decreased by 0.5%.