A customer at a branch of Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) in Hà Nội. BID rose 1 per cent on Wednesday. Photo courtesy of BID

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese stock markets ended Wednesday on a positive note, largely led by gains in financial shares and heavy-weight stocks.

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the market benchmark VN-Index gained 0.42 per cent to end at 1,452.87 points.

It had gained 2.35 per cent to end Tuesday at 1,446.77 points.

The market's breadth was neutral with 207 gainers and 222 losers.

As many as 771 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth nearly VNĐ21.6 trillion (US$941.8 million).

The VN30-Index, tracking the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, gained 0.23 per cent to end at 1,516.16 points. Nineteen out of 30 stocks in the VN30 basket posted gains while 10 declined.

According to financial news site cafef.vn, Tuesday’s large increase was lessened Wednesday as investors feared being caught in a bull trap, thereby resulting in lower buying demand as sellers were forced to lower stock prices.

A drop of investor confidence hit eight of the 25 industries on the stock market, including insurance, information and technology, seafood processing, construction materials and food and beverage.

On the other side, strong cash flow poured into the market still supported other sectors including wholesale, real estate, securities, retail, healthcare, oil and gas, banking, agriculture, rubber processing and logistics.

Notably, the financial banking group outperformed and supported the gains of the market with notable gainers including Vietinbank (CTG), Tiên Phong Bank (TPB), VPBank (VPB), Vietcombank (VCB), Military Bank (MBB), Sacombank (STB), Eximbank (EIB) and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID).

The steel industry experienced a negative trading day with notable industry-representative stocks such as Hoà Phát Group (HPG), Hoa Sen Group (HSG) and Nam Kim Group (NKG) all dropped. Since their peak in October 2021, these stocks all dropped by 18-32 per cent.

The largest-cap stock on the stock exchange, Vingroup (VIC), saw a sharp drop of 2.81 per cent and thereby dragged the VN-Index down nearly 2.66 points.

Along with Vingroup (VIC), the other two leading real estate stocks, Vinhomes (VHM) and Novaland (NVL), lost 0.74 per cent and 0.71 per cent, respectively.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index rose 0.75 per cent, to 449.74 points.

It had risen 2.42 per cent, to end Tuesday at 446.41 points.

During the session, investors poured over VNĐ3.15 trillion into the market, equivalent to a trading volume of 121.2 million shares. — VNS