Shares tumbled last week on both national stock exchanges, with negative news causing the situation to become worse towards the end of the week.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 5.68 per cent from the previous week's close to conclude Friday's session at 65.97 points – close to its all-time record low of last August.

Meanwhile, on the HCMC Stock Exchange, the VN-Index was cushioned by some strong performances by blue chips, declining by a more modest 2.72 per cent to close the week at 410.57 points.

The eurozone debt crisis, with uncertainty over a possible Greek default or exit from the eurozone, eroded investor confidence, along with discouraging news on the domestic economy.

FPT Securities Co analyst Le Thi Bich Hang said that commercial banks' rising levels of bad debt, high interbank interest rates and news of several major bankruptcies had elevated investor wariness towards the securities market.

Analysts of the financial website vietstock.vn said that soaring interbank interest rates, which climbed to 27 per cent per year last Thursday, continued to reveal the liquidity weakness of banks, and the failure of the central bank to stabilise these rates would further stress the stock market.

They also noted that the Viet Nam Securities Depository last week suspended custody operations for SME Securities Co (SME) due to its cash shortfall in clearing transactions.

"Though the scale of the incident was not large, SME's greatest loss is the investor confidence," they said. "Many investors massively unloaded its shares and investor psychology was significantly affected by the incident."

The average daily volume of transactions on the Ha Noi market last week rose by nearly 30 per cent over the previous week, averaging 37.4 million shares, with an average daily value of VND399 billion (US$19 million).

Meanwhile, in HCM City last week, average daily volume soared by over 33 per cent to 35.2 million shares, worth an average of VND581.6 billion ($27.7 million) per day.

The only bright spots in last week's trades were food and beverage shares, which rose by 4.37 per cent.

Military Bank (MBB), which debuted earlier last week, became a "hot stock" by volume, along with Becamex Infrastructure Development Co (IJC), Kim Long Securities Co (KLS) and VNDSecurities Co (VND). MBB was unable to post gains over the course of the week, however, despite high interest from foreign investors, who picked up a net VND83 billion ($4 million) worth of MBB shares.

Foreigners were net buyers last week of VND109 billion ($5.2 million) worth of shares on the HCM City boursel, but were sellers overall in Ha Noi by a net VND9 billion ($428,600).

In the coming week, credit institutions must report to the central bank on all real estate lending by Wednesday, and how they respond to this requirement is expected to have an impact on the market.

VNS