The escalating tensions in the Middle East region during the weekend along with the rebound in world oil prices have caused the domestic market to open the week in a negative state.
The VN-Index temporarily stopped the morning session on March 30, still recording a decrease of nearly 20 points and trading with liquidity continuing to be below the 20-session average, showing the cautious sentiment of investors.
In the afternoon session of March 30, bottom-fishing demand appeared, helping the index significantly narrow its decline. However, selling pressure quickly returned, causing the recovery to not be maintained, VN-Index reversed to decrease towards the end of the session.
At the end of the session, VN-Index decreased by 10.26 points (-0.61%) to 1,662.54 points. Total trading volume reached 824.7 million units, value of 21,490 billion VND, down 12.3% in volume and 8.4% in value compared to the last session of the previous week. Foreign investors' transactions were a minus point when net selling was about 1,342 billion VND.
Regarding industry groups, although the banking and securities groups still lost points, some member codes traded brightly again at the end of the session. Typically, STB increased by 2.2%, EIB increased by 1.1%, SHB and LPB were slightly green; or securities had HCM increase slightly by 0.2%; while the remaining codes narrowed their decline significantly.
Meanwhile, the steel stock group reversed and recovered when most stocks in the industry regained green color. Specifically, large stock HPG closed up 1.5% to 26,900 VND/share with liquidity only behind SHB with 41.3 million units; HSG and NKG stocks both increased slightly, SMC increased by 4.5%.
The real estate stock group still lost points when under pressure from large codes.
The most prominent thing in today's trading session was the recovery in the oil and gas stock group. BSR accelerated towards the end of the session and closed recording an increase of 5.6% to 29,150 VND/share with liquidity reaching 19.7 million units, although foreign investors net sold more than 1.7 million units. In addition, PVD closed the session up 1.3% to 36,200 VND/share with liquidity reaching more than 4 million units.
There is currently no strong enough information to create sustainable momentum for the market. Developments surrounding the US-Iran conflict still contain many uncertainties, while the country is facing pressure from rising exchange rates and tense liquidity in the banking system. These are factors that can negatively affect investor sentiment.
Experts also noted that the bottom-fishing process usually does not take place in just 2-3 sessions. Therefore, the recent increase may just be a technical phase of recovery in the medium-term downtrend. The risk of VN-Index returning to test the 1,570-1,580 point zone is still high.
In that context, investors should maintain a large proportion of cash, limit holding stocks with high beta coefficients and only consider short-term trading with a small proportion in businesses with truly outstanding fundamentals.
