Customers at a transaction office of BIDV. The bank's shares soared 4 per cent on Wednesday, leading the rally trend. VNA/VNS Photo 

HÀ NỘI — The market ended mixed on Wednesday, with the benchmark VN-Index extending its winning streak to a seventh straight session while the HNX-Index finished lower. 

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index rose 4.02 points, or 0.35 per cent, to close the day at 1,138.35 points. 

The breadth of the market was negative as more than 190 stocks went down, while 138 inched higher. 

Liquidity, on the other hand, improved. Both trading volume and value increased 23.6 per cent and 21.8 per cent over Tuesday’s session, respectively, to over 892.1 million shares and VNĐ17.9 trillion (US$761 million).

The 30 biggest stocks tracker VN30-Index also closed higher, up 6.71 points, or 0.59 per cent, to 1,141.12 points. 

Sixteen stocks in the VN30 basket advanced, while 13 declined and one stayed unchanged. 

In contrast, the HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HoSE) dropped 0.57 points, or 0.25 per cent, to 230.25 points. This marked its four-day losing streak. 

During the session, investors poured more than VNĐ1.7 trillion into the northern bourse, equivalent to a trading volume of 100.1 million shares. 

Previously, securities companies had the same negative opinion that the VN-Index would face correction pressure after gaining for six consecutive days. Participants in the market have focused on real estate which was the sector contributing the most to the VN-Index's recent rally.

In fact, realty stocks were under strong selling force for most of the trading day. However, the benchmark was lifted by demand for banking ticker symbols.

Statistics from the financial website vietstock.vn showed that four of the top 5 stocks leading the bullish trend were from the banking industry. They were BIDV (BID), Vietcombank (VCB), and Vietinbank (CTG), MBBank (MBB), of which BID was the biggest gainer on Tuesday. All the stocks were up at least 1.1 per cent. 

Hoà Phát Group (HPG) was the last in the top 5 with an increase of 3.1 per cent. 

Also contributing to the rallies, property developers Novaland (NVL) and Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) posted big gains, up 4 per cent and 3.82 per cent, respectively. 

Gains were capped by profit-taking activities in some sectors, especially the realty industry. Vinhomes (VHM) was the biggest loser, down 0.89 per cent in market capitalisation. It was followed by Becamex (BCM), Vingroup (VIC), CII Bridges & Roads Investment JSC (LGC), and Kinh Bắc City Development Holding Corporation (KBC), with LGC logging the maximum daily loss of 7 per cent. 

Foreign investors returned to the market and were net buyers on both main bourses yesterday. They net bought a value of more than VNĐ75 billion on HoSE and VNĐ41.93 billion on HNX. — VNS