Investors watch stock information at a securities firm. The benchmark VN-Index of the Hochiminh Stock Exchange improved slightly today, January 22 – PHOTO: VNA

HCMC – The benchmark VN-Index of the Hochiminh Stock Exchange improved slightly today, January 22, but market turnover continued to fall amid cautious trading after a sharp stock-market decline on January 19.

With 211 advancers and 233 decliners, the VN-Index inched up 2.57 points, or 0.22% against the previous session at 1,166.78. Turnover on the southern bourse contracted 2.5% in volume and 8.33% in value at some 758 million shares and around VND16 trillion. Shares transacted in block deals contributed more than VND1.3 trillion to the total value.

The VN-30 basket saw 17 stocks rising and 10 others dropping. Some bank stocks like TCB, HDB and VPB bounced back, but other bluechips such as housing developer VHM, retailer VRE, consumer goods producer MSN, and tech firm FPT maintained growth.

Meanwhile, of the top index draggers, dairy firm VNM fell 1.5% to its intraday low of VND108,700, gas company GAS and fuel distributor PLX lost over 1% each, and steelmaker HPG edged down 1.2%.

Property developer FLC and construction firm ROS stole the limelight of the market. FLC soared to its ceiling price, with 57.38 million shares changing hands, while ROS also hit its upper limit and reported a matching volume of 51.52 million shares.

Outstanding winners of the session also comprised industrial park developers BCM and KBC, and rubber companies DRC, CSM, and SRC. Further, many realty and construction stocks including DXG, FCN, HBC, HDC, HDG ended in positive territory.

On the northern bourse, due to increased profit-taking, the HNX-Index made slight corrections and shedded 0.16 point, or 0.07% over the session earlier to close at 240.12, with 87 winners and 12 losers.