HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares struggled to rise on Tuesday as bank stocks made gains, but investor confidence remained weak with low liquidity as the market showed no supportive information.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange advanced 0.42 per cent to close at 1,153.28 points. It had fallen 2.1 per cent in the previous two sessions.

The HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange was up 0.70 per cent to end at 134.25 points, recovering from a two-day decline of total 1.7 per cent.

Nearly 221.8 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VNĐ6.16 trillion (US$273.8 million).

Gaining stocks dominated the market trading and outnumbered losers by 243 to 190 while 136 others stocks were steady.

Thirteen of the 20 sectors on the stock market saw share prices up, led by banks, insurance companies, securities firms and property developers.

Those sector indices were up between 2.6 per cent and 1 per cent, led by bank stocks.

Trịnh Duy Viết, head of market analysis at Đông Á Securities Co Ltd, told tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn that the banking sector would draw much of investors’ attention for their prospects in credit growth, low lending rates and high demand for lending.

The Resolution 42/2017/QH14 issued by the National Assembly on debt handling would help local commercial banks claim higher proportion of guaranteed assets, providing them with more financial resources and incomes, he said.

Among gaining bank stocks were Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID), Eximbank (EIB), MBBank (MBB) and Vietinbank (CTG), which rose at least 2.4 per cent.

In the other three sectors, the best-performing stocks included Kinh Bắc City Development Holding (KBC), Đất Xanh Real Estate Service and Construction (DXG), insurer Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH), BIDV Securities (BSI) and Saigon Securities Inc (SSI).

The benchmark VN Index started recovering when it touched the level of 1,140 points, meaning it had lost total 5.4 per cent since hitting the all-time high of 1,204.33 points on April 9.

Such loss triggered bottom-fishing among investors and lifted the index to the end of Tuesday session. However, the major concern now is whether the benchmark index can carry on the momentum as trading liquidity has remained modest.

According to Việt Dragon Securities Co, liquidity remained low on Tuesday as “investors were possibly afraid of a bull-trap” and the company was not highly confident by Tuesday’s recovery.

“Low liquidity reflected doubtful sentiment of investors” and the market growth was “mostly attributed to a decrease of selling pressure,” Bảo Việt Securities Co (BVSC) said in its daily report.

BVSC forecast that the market would still move sideways as mixed performances among local stocks would go on, especially when the market is showing little supportive information. — VNS