Investors watch stock movements at a ACB Securities Co's trading floor. — VNS Photo Việt Thanh

Viet Nam NewsHÀ NỘI — The VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose slightly yesterday as investor confidence remained low on a lack of business news.

Việt Nam’s benchmark index closed yesterday’s session at 716.6 points, nearly unchanged from the ending point of 716.54 points on Tuesday.

Yesterday’s slight increase also helped the VN Index extend gains for a fourth day with total growth of 1.3 per cent.

Market liquidity declined from Tuesday’s figure with more than 175.6 million shares traded, worth VNĐ3.67 trillion (US$163 million).

Investor confidence remained low as the stock market was short of business and economic news positive enough to bolster investors’ sentiment, BIDV Securities Corp (BSC) said in its report.

Additionally, the decline of the VN Index for most of yesterday’s session came from the fall of stocks that had gained significantly on the previous trading days, BSC added.

Faros Construction Corp (ROS) was down 0.6 per cent, marking its first decline after surging nearly 67 per cent since December 13, 2016.

Vietjet Aviation JSC (VJC) dropped 1.9 per cent. VJC has fallen 5.4 per cent in the last two sessions after rising 27 per cent since being listed on February 28.

Property firm Vingroup (VIC) fell 0.8 per cent from a three-day increase of 1.7 per cent.

The two large-cap energy companies on the southern bourse, PetroVietnam Gas Corp (GAS) and PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services Corp (PVD), saw their share values decline following the decrease of crude oil prices.

On the opposite side, banks and food-beverage producers helped the benchmark index finished the day in positive territory.

All six listed banks on the southern bourse gained, with Eximbank (EIB) the best performer and MBBank (MBB) and Sacombank (STB) advancing 1.1 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively.

The food-beverage sector was driven up by dairy firm Vinamilk (VNM), which added 0.5 per cent after one of its institutional shareholder, the Thai dairy producer F&N Dairy Investments Pte Ltd registered to purchase more than 21.7 million of Vinamilk’s shares between March 10 and April 7.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX Index rose 1 per cent to end at 87.53 points. The northern market index increased by a total 1.1 per cent in the last two sessions.

More than 51.7 million shares were exchanged on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ667.5 billion. — VNS