A Vietcombank office. The bank shares gained 2 per cent on Tuesday. - Photo cafef.vn

HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam’s benchmark VN-Index rebounded on Tuesday but the growth was short-lived as investors worried about the short-term prospects of the stock market.

The VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange rose 0.24 per cent to close at 988.13 points after having gained as much as 0.57 per cent during the day.

The benchmark index dropped 0.47 per cent on Monday.

The large-cap VN30-Index grew at a slower pace at the end of the day.

The VN30-Index ended the afternoon session up 0.09 per cent –much lower than the morning growth rate of 0.44 per cent.

In the afternoon trading session, investors switched from large-cap and small-cap stocks to mid-cap stocks, boosting the VNMID-Index up 0.40 per cent.

The mid-cap index gained only 0.10 per cent in the morning session.

But the HCM City market still depended on the performance of a few large-cap stocks.

Among the gaining blue chips were Vingroup (VIC), Vietcombank (VCB), dairy firm Vinamilk (VNM), steel producer Hòa Phát (HPG) and SSI Securities Corp (SSI).

Those large-cap stocks pushed the banking, food and beverage, real estate, building material, and securities sector indices up between 0.4 per cent and 1 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Those stocks rose between 0.7 per cent and 2 per cent.

On the negative side, technology, agriculture, retail, insurance, and petroleum and energy were the sectors suffering from selling pressure.

The VN-Index did see a technical recovery on Tuesday as investors doubted short-term prospects, proved by the decline of trading liquidity, MB Securities Co (MBS) said in its daily report.

More than 165 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ4.08 trillion (US$175.44 million), down a fifth in volume and 23 per cent in value from Monday figures.

The dependence on large-cap stocks showed investors were unwilling to actively participate in the trading at the moment, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in a note.

The VN-Index was unlikely to rebound strongly in the next few days, TCSC said, adding the benchmark would continue swinging in the current range of 980-985 points.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.36 per cent to end at 104.01 points.

The northern market index was up 0.23 per cent on Monday.

More than 24.7 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ311.5 billion. – VNS