The Government effort to clamp down on black market currency and gold trading, along with moves by listed companies to buy back shares, helped boost the nation’s stock markets last week.

On the HCM City Stock Exchange, the VN-Index finished the week on Friday at 495.06 points, a gain of 7.8 per cent over the previous week’s close, while the average daily volume of trades remained steady.

The increases represented a liberation of buying power after three consecutive weeks of declines, noted analysts from FPT Securities Co, although they warned that rallying sessions last Thursday and Friday could lead to increasing sell pressures by the middle of this week, as shares hit traders’ accounts under the T+4 settlement system.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index rose by a more modest 0.87 per cent to 94.85 points, with the average daily value of trades dropped by 10 per cent from the previous week to VND447.3 billion (US$20.8 million).

Tai Viet Securities Co analyst Nguyen Ba Tinh said that restrictions on black market currency trading, sharp increases in interbank interest rates, tighter credit and steeper inflation were all putting strong pressures on the market. If month-on-month inflation in March remained below 1 per cent, Tinh said, it would be consistent with the pace set last year.

A Stoxplus survey of 483 listed companies suggested the ability of enterprises to adapt to the economic environment varied greatly, formula for less-than-impressive overall stock market growth.

FPT Securities analysts predicted that economic policies with potentially negative impacts on market sentiment were likely to be deployed in the near future to battle inflation, a sagging domestic currency, and interest rates.

But they also expected that improved trading volume would excite investors this week and that the VN-Index would retest the 500-mark early in the week.

Source: VNS