A man withdraws money from a Vietcombank ATM. Vietcombank and Techcombank were among the top 10 shares dragging the VN-Index. — VNS Photo Mai Hương

HÀ NỘI — The market downturn slowed in the afternoon session following increased demand when the VN-Index fell to near the short-term resistance level.

After losing nearly 30 points in the morning, the VN-Index recovered towards the end of the session, closing at the day’s highest price at 1,240.77 points, down 0.61 per cent from Tuesday’s close. This was the second fall this week.

Liquidity on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange improved with nearly 608 million shares worth VNĐ14.4 trillion (US$621 million) traded, up 28.3 per cent in volume and 16.3 per cent in value compared to the previous session.

The securities industry overturned the morning decline, registering an average growth of 2 per cent by the end of the session. Biggest gainers included Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), Hồ Chí Minh Securities (HCM), FPT Securities (FTS), Vietinbank Securities (CTS), BIDV Securities (BSI), Viet Capital Securities (VCI) and Agribank Securities (AGR), increasing between 1.4 per cent and 5.8 per cent each.

Of which SSI, HCM and VCI were among the top shares lifting the VN-Index most.

On the dark side, brewer Sabeco (SAB), Vinamilk (VNM), PV Gas (GAS), Masan Group (MSN), Vincom (VIC) and Vinhomes (VHM), together with banks such as Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG), Techcombank (TCB) and BIDV (BID) were the top 10 dragging the market most.

“The market continued to retreat but currently is still supported at 1,245 points in the VN-Index,” said Phương Nguyễn, a stock analyst at Viet Dragon Securities Co.

Liquidity was still quite low, showing that the supply pressure showed signs of cooling down in the second correction session and causing the trading movement to become more stable, Phương said.

“However, the minus point of the market in this period is still the lack of quality demand. It’s expected that the market has a chance to continue recovering in the near future but the increase may not be high, the resistance area is 1,260-1,270 points for the VN-Index.”

Phương suggested investors observe supply and demand movements in the near future to re-evaluate the market. “It’s still advisable to take advantage of the recovery span to continue structuring the portfolio in the direction of risk reduction,” she said.

VN-Index has experienced a gloomy September with a loss of more than 3 per cent after the last eight trading days.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index declined for a third day, losing 0.77 per cent to close at 279.42 points.

Both trading volume and value increased by more than 20 per cent to 80.4 million worth VNĐ1.7 trillion. — VNS