Shares closed down in HCM City this morning but profit-taking pushed trading value and volume up to a significantly high level.

With over 57.6 million shares changing hands, market value rocketed by around 300 per cent to VND890.5 billion ($42.4 million) compared to Tuesday's session.

The VN-Index on the HCM City Stock Exchange finished 0.37 per cent lower after reaching 388.42 points.

The VN30, which tracks the southern bourse's top shares, shed 0.1 per cent to 458.56 points, as decliners among these blue chips outweighed advancers.
Some major stocks such as Eximbank (EIB), property developer Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) and Military Bank (MBB) gained between 0.5-2.6 per cent, but food processor Masan (MSN), Sacombank (STB), Vietcombank (VCB) and diary product company Vinamilk (VNM) lost up to 1.6 per cent.

Meanwhile, yesterday's data showed that EIB — one of the largest stocks — had a trading volume of more than 35 million shares. EIB had the most active stocks yesterday despite concerns over the banking system's bad debt.
Analysts for Bao Viet Securities Co, Nguyen Xuan Binh and Tran Hai Yen, said that the current bottleneck could be found in the mechanism to tackle the VND200 trillion ($9.6 billion) bad debt.

National Assembly deputies want to establish a new asset management company to replace the Ministry of Finance's Debt and Asset Trading Corporation.
"Without more intervention of the Government, bad debt restructuring will be very time-consuming and will cause more damage," they said.

They added that the Government must also improve legal frameworks and call for the involvement of foreign investors.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.2 per cent, reaching only 53.02 points after a day of slow trading.

The value of trades almost halved compared to Tuesday's level to just VND137.17 billion ($6.5 million).

However, the HNX30 - representing the capital city's leading shares in terms of capitalisation and liquidity - bucked the trend to edge up 0.09 per cent, standing at 97.59 points.
Meanwhile, foreign investors concluded yesterday as net buyers nationwide, picking a total margin of VND25.9 billion ($1.2 million).