A construction site of FECON Corporation (FCN). FCN rose 7 per cent Wednesday. — VNA/VNS Photo Tú Uyên

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese markets extended gains and ended higher on Wednesday, thanks largely to sharp rises in property and steel shares.

The market benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) increased 0.29 per cent, to finish the trading day at 1,505.38 points.

The index had increased 0.22 per cent to finish Tuesday at 1,500.99 points.

The market breadth was positive as 161 stocks declined while 291 rose and 45 ended flat.

Nearly 794.7 million shares were traded on the southern market, worth VNĐ25.2 trillion (US$1.1 billion).

The steel stock group attracted a strong injection of cash flow and gained sharply, with giant steelmaker Hòa Phát Group (HPG) rising 3.8 per cent, thereby contributing nearly two points to the increase of the VN-Index.

Compared to the price before the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday, HPG has increased by 12 per cent. With the fact that the company has more than 4.47 billion shares listed on the stock market, an increase of 12 per cent means HPG's capitalisation has increased by VNĐ22.8 trillion.

Other steelmakers including Hoa Sen Group (HSG), Nam Kim Group (NKG) and Pomina Steel Corporation (POM) all hit the ceiling prices.

A series of real estate stocks also hit ceiling prices and strongly pushed up the indices, including Licogi 14 JSC (L14), C.E.O Group JSC (CEO), Development Investment Construction Corporation (DIG), DRH Holdings JSC (DRH) and FECON CORPORATION (FCN).

On the other side, banking stocks performed poorly as they suffered strong selling forces at the end of the trading session, with losers including Orient Commercial Bank (OCB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Vietinbank (CTG), Vpbank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB), Sacombank (STB), Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and Eximbank (EIB).

Nineteen out of 25 sector indices on the market made gains, including wholesale, insurance, securities, IT, retail, healthcare, agriculture, rubber production, food and beverage, seafood production, construction materials, and logistics.

The 30 biggest stocks tracker, VN30-Index, climbed 0.13 per cent to finish at 1,552.44 points.

Of the VN30 basket, 16 stocks increased while 14 decreased.

Meanwhile, on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index gained 1.51 per cent to close at 424.19 points.

The northern market index had gained 0.22 per cent to close Tuesday at 417.89 points.

During the session, nearly 65 million shares were traded on HNX, worth VNĐ1.9 trillion. — VNS