Sacombank's headquarters in District 3, HCM City. Shares of the lender soared more than three per cent on Thursday, cushioning the market's losses. Photo sacombank.com.vn

HÀ NỘI — The stock market was quiet on Thursday due to low investor sentiment ahead of the long holidays. Despite a sharp drop in liquidity, the VN-Index was able to hold steady around the 1,280 point mark.

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index closed the trading day at 1,281.47 points, up modestly 0.03 points.

The breadth of the southern market was negative with the number of decliners surpassing that of gainers by 182 to 120.

Liquidity also remained low, down 14.1 per cent from the previous session to over VNĐ14 trillion (US$564.3 million). The trading volume was nearly 634.1 million shares.

The 30 biggest stocks tracker, VN-Index, rose 3.13 points, or 0.24 per cent. In the VN30 basket, 12 stocks ticked up while 14 declined and four ended flat.

The market benchmark VN-Index was little changed as gains in banking and real estate stocks helped offset losses of many others.

Banking stocks performed well after the State Bank of Việt Nam (SBV) permitted banks to independently expand credit room.

In particular, as of August 28, credit organisations surpassing 80 per cent of the SBV's designated credit growth target for the year will proactively adjust their outstanding debts based on credit ratings.

In the top ten stocks contributing the most to the market's direction, Vietcombank (VCB), one of the biggest domestic commercial banks, increased 0.44 per cent to VNĐ91,500 per share. Sacombank (STB) soared 3.05 per cent, HD Bank (HDB) rose 1.11 per cent and MBBank (MBB) was up 0.81 per cent.

Also helping cushion the market's downturn, large property developer Vinhomes (VHM) posted a big gain of 1.47 per cent. Becamex (BCM) and Khang Điền House (KDH) increased 2.88 per cent and 0.87 per cent, respectively.

In contrast, BIDV (BID) was the biggest loser, down 0.6 per cent. It was followed by Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR), PV Gas (GAS) and Vinamilk (VNM). These stocks dipped 0.48-0.98 per cent.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index finished lower at 237.88 points, down 0.35 points, or 0.15 per cent.

During the session, over 38 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ704 billion.

Foreign investors extended their net selling streak as they net sold VNĐ115.1 billion on the HoSE. — VNS