Analysts have attributed panic selling on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the VN-Index is based, to the Ministry of Health’s announcement of Vietnam’s first two intra-community Covid-19 cases in two months in the morning.

With Vietnamese stocks plummeting, foreign investors seem to be bottom fishing when net buying a total of VND250 billion worth of stocks in the first trading hour, with CTG of state-owned lender VietinBank, HPG of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group, and STB of private lender Sacombank the most bought up stocks.

This buying pressure allowed the Index to recover around 10 points by 9.30 a.m., but domestic selling casued it to fall to 1,034.30 points, down 62 points compared to the start of the session.

The VN30-Index for the stock market’s largest caps was also down 5.73 percent at this point, with all 30 blue chips in the red, and 8 at their floor prices.

Securities firms had warned the number of inexperienced investors and margin traders trying to ride the VN-Index’s recovery in the past months would overreact to any selling pressure on the stock market, causing mass selloffs like those seen in the two sessions of the past two weeks.