VietNamNet Bridge – The gold price has tumbled, the stock market is witnessing a drop in oil and gas share prices, and the US dollar continues to rise.

The global crude oil price continues to slide after OPEC’s statement on November 27 on maintaining exploitation output. Light sweet oil dropped by $7.54 per barrel, or 10 percent, in New York on November 28, to $66.15 per barrel. This was the sharpest price fall since March 2009.

The sharp falls of the “black gold” price, empowered by the US economy recovery and the greenback appreciation, have had a major impact on the international gold market.

The spot gold price lost $21.3 per ounce last weekend in New York to $1.169.5 per ounce.

Vietnam’s gold price also decreased, slightly more than the world price, by VND80,000 per tael last weekend.

The slight price decrease has once again widened the gap between world and domestic prices. Gold is traded at around VND34.96 million per tael.

However, analysts noted that the Vietnamese SJC gold price dropped by VND400,000 per tael over the last week.

Meanwhile, the dollar price has increased steadily despite the statement by the State Bank that the dollar supply was abundant and the bank was ready to sell dollars if necessary.

The dollar price rose by another VND65 per dollar to VND21,460-21,470 per dollar.

The Vietnamese stock market last week saw prices of oil & gas companies falling to  floor prices.

On November 28, PVD, a subsidiary of PetroVietnam, for the first time this year, saw its shares traded at the floor price.

GAS and other members of the oil & gas family also faced the same problem. Both domestic and foreign investors tried to sell shares to stop losses.

The shares of enterprises in other business fields also decreased sharply in value last week.

Though the stock index recovered in the last trading session of the week, the market was still pessimistic.  

However, consumers have benefited because, as the petrol price has fallen by 20 percent, prices of other goods and services, including transport services, fertilizer, plastics production and metallurgy, also dropped. Fuel costs make up 20 percent of business production costs.

Dr. Ngo Tri Long, a pricing expert, commented that the oil price decrease is not worrying for Vietnam.

He said it is understandable that prices of oil and gas shares have fallen. However, this is just a temporary problem.

“Vietnamese enterprises will get benefits from fuel price decreases, which would help them get higher profits, thus making enterprises more valuable and their shares more expensive,” Long said.

“Once the oil and gas share prices recover, this will have a positive impact on the market,” Long said.