Hanoi - Vietnam's stock market lost nearly 2 per cent
Tuesday to fall to levels last seen in February 2006.
The VN-Index closed down 6.48 points, or 1.97 percent, at 322
points.
'I am very sad to see Vietnam's market has dived so deep,' said
analyst Vo Quoc Khanh of FPT Securities.
'I am panicking ,' said Nguyen Thanh Hai, a trader at Bao Viet
Securities. 'I can't sell my stock.'
Market volume rose to 15.4 million shares valued at 23 million
dollars, up from Monday's 11.9 million shares valued at 3.9 million
dollars.
Khanh said market trends would continue to be negative.
'It is very difficult to be optimistic about the stock market in
the next few trading days,' said Khanh. 'Vietnam's macroeconomy
still has a lot of uncertainties, and the global financial market
crisis is causing more problems.'
Vietnam has only recently begun to tame an inflation rate that
topped 30 per cent earlier this year. The country's trade deficit for
2008 could hit 20 billion dollars, nearly a quarter of its GDP, and
businesses are having trouble accessing credit due to double-digit
interest rates.
Hai said foreign investors were dumping shares across the board
since the beginning of October, and noted that the market was worse
than he could have imagined two months ago.
Local media Tuesday quoted officials at Vietnam's State Securities
Commission saying they will intervene to halt trading if the market
continued to fall sharply.
'The SSC will not let the market fall freely,' Nguyen Son, head of
the commission's market development department, told the newspaper
Nguoi Lao Dong. 'We will take urgent measures to help boost the
market, which has lost 65 per cent so far this year.'
Son did not elaborate what measures it would take.
Vietnam's stock market has fallen 141 points, or 30 per cent,
since the start of October.
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