VN-Index plumbs three-year depth

Hanoi (VNA) - The VN-Index continue to fall on Feb. 5. dropping another 8.3 points
to close at 277.81, the market's lowest level since September 29, 2005.

Trading volume at the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange reached 7.1 million shares for a
total of 152.5 billion VND (8.7 million USD), with 141 shares declining and only 13
gainers.

Sacombank (STB) was again the day's most active share, with 590,000 traded.

Bao Viet Securities Co was predicting that the recovery of the Vietnamese market
would pass through three stages (difficulty, fluctuation and recovery).

It said the market would see difficulty into the second quarter of this year due to
the publication of poor 2008 business performance and data on commercial bank bad
debt to be published at the end of the first quarter, when it expected the VN-Index
to still be hovering at around 300 points.

By mid-year, however, the firm's analysts were expecting the VN-Index to be
fluctuating at between 350 and 450 points, with recovery not likely until later in
the third quarter.

Jim Hassett, chairman of Earnt & Young Co-AMP - Far East, noted that the Vietnam
stock market lost 70 percent of its value in 2008, the most significance decrease in
Asia, and a reflection of the global economic downturn's impact on Vietnam .
At the Hanoi Securities Trading Centre on Feb. 5, the HASTC-Index also slipped
to 90.21 points, a loss of 3.61 points, on a volume of just under 5 million shares
at a total value of 97.8 billion VND (5.5 million USD).-Enditem