Stocks, gold continue to drop sharply

After the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 a pandemic, the global financial market tumbled and Vietnam’s stock market on March 12 was unable to avoid its impacts.
Particularly, just in the first 45 minutes of the trading session, the VN-Index had lost 44 points. Despite fairly strong bottom-fishing, the benchmark still slumped nearly 43 points at the end of the trading session. The transactions of the foreign sector happened fairly negatively when foreign investors continued to net sell for a 23rd consecutive trading session with more than VND430 billion in the market.

The VN-Index fell 42.1 points, or 5.19 percent, to close at 769.25 points with 53 stocks advancing, 344 declining while 26 standing still.

The HNX-Index of the smaller bourse in the North also dropped 3.6 points, or 3.41 percent, to close at 101.92 points with 39 winners and 140 losers, while 35 stocks remained unmoved.

Market liquidity was still maintained at a high level. The total trading volume on both floors reached 419 million shares, worth VND6.05 trillion.

On Wall Street, the main indicators also lost around 5 percent. Of which, Dow Jones plunged nearly 1,500 points or 5.9 percent; S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite also sank nearly 5 percent; NYSE Composite dived 5.2 percent. Similarly, Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Topix Index retreated nearly 3 percent; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index also slid 2.3 percent.

Stocks were dumping heavily but the cash flow of investors did not pump into gold as forecast, making the gold market also weaken. The price of gold in Vietnam recorded a three-day losing streak on March 12. Saigon Jewelry Company lowered the price of the precious metal by VND200,000 per tael (1.2 ounces) compared to the previous day. Thus, since the beginning of this week, the price of gold has declined by more than VND1 million per tael.

The global gold price receded to below US$1,640 an ounce at night on March 11, the lowest level in a week. Spot gold on the Kitco closed at $1,640.5 an ounce while the closing price in New York was at $1,634.8 an ounce, down more than $14 an ounce compared to the previous trading session. After conversion, the global gold price was around VND1.2 million per tael lower than the domestic one.

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