HSBC issued its monthly report on the Vietnamese equity market on Friday, noting that it was the worst-performing among regional markets, but the opinion seemed to have little impact on Friday's trading.

Average daily volume fell from 10 million to 8.1 million shares, and the average daily value reached VND151.5 billion (US$8.7 million).

Sacombank (STB) was the most-active share of the week, with a total of 7.9 million traded.

Foreign investors last week continued to be net sellers of 4.8 million shares, worth a combined VND76.1 billion ($4.3 million).

In the week's trading, tourism and entertainment stocks scored the highest gain in value, at 8.09 per cent, followed by household products and insurance, according to data from FPT Securities Co.

Shares in the healthcare sector saw the biggest loss in value, dropping 3.38 per cent on average, while financial and petroleum shares were also overall losers on the week.

The HCM City Stock Exchange put two more stocks under observation as they published 2008 losses early last week, raising the number of observed stocks on the southern market to 15.

Quach Manh Hao, a market analyst at Thang Long Securities Co, said that the observation was a black mark on enterprises that performed poorly last year, but not a particularly good predictor of future business results.

"It's important to keep an ee on how well these firms do," he said. "From our point of view, some of them could be worth investing in this year."

Investors should have a more complete view on the firms they would pour money into, not just the data in the financial report, he added.

In Ha Noi last week, the HASTC-Index also largely stood its ground, gaining just 0.63 per cent on the week to close at 84.59. Daily trading volume declined from an average of 5.4 million shares in the previous week to just 4.3 million shares, for an average daily value of VND78 billion ($4.5 million).

Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), construction giant Vinaconex Group (VCG) and Kim Long Securities (KLS) were the most active stocks on the northern bourse. FPT Securities analyst Dao Viet Anh predicted that the VN-Index would continue oscillating at around 245 points this week, while the Ha Noi index would hover in the range of 78-87 points.

( VOVNEWS.VN )