A gas shop in HCM City’s District 3. The oil and gas sector index gained 1.57 per cent on Wednesday, being among the best-performing sectors in Việt Nam. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Vũ

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares advanced on Wednesday as increasing oil prices helped boost petroleum stocks.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) rose 0.46 per cent to end Wednesday’s session at 846.92 points.

The index had edged down 0.01 per cent to end Tuesday’s session at 843.08 points.

Nearly 272.5 million shares traded on the southern exchange, worth VNĐ4.5 trillion (US$193.9 million).

Market breadth was positive with 205 gainers and 180 decliners.

The blue-chip index VN30, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and liquidity on HoSE, rose 0.49 per cent to end Wednesday at 788.42 points.

Eighteen of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity in the large-cap basket increased while eight decreased.

The stock market was driven by strong gains in energy and mining stocks after global oil prices picked up in Wednesday's overnight trading.

According to Reuters, oil prices climbed with Brent up 0.6 per cent at $44.75 a barrel. US crude was up 0.5 per cent at $41.80.

The oil and gas sector index gained 1.57 per cent, becoming one of the best-performing sectors in Việt Nam on Wednesday, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Vietnamese oil and gas stocks grew well, including PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), Việt Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD), PetroVietnam Power Corp (POW), and PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS).

Besides the petroleum industry, financial stocks also performed well with the banking and insurance industry indices rising 0.6 per cent and 0.3 per cent, with gainers including Vietcombank (VCB), Techcombank (TCB), Vietinbank (CTG), HDBank (HDB), VPBank (VPB), Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID) and insurer Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH).

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index slid 0.17 per cent to end at 116.10 points.

The index went up 2.34 per cent to end Tuesday at 116.30 points.

More than 44.1 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VNĐ580 billion.

According to Thành Công Securities Co, in the absence of motivation for a strong breakout, the VN-Index will need more time to accumulate so it can move further to as much as 855-865 points.

Profit-taking pressure still weighed on many groups of stocks with strong growth previously, the company said.

It recommended investors maintain an average stock ratio of 40-50 per cent in their portfolios for medium and long-term goals. — VNS