HÀ NỘI — Shares closed Tuesday on a positive note on the HCM Stock Exchange, however, market trading condition was poor on increased investors’ profit-taking.

The benchmark VN Index advanced 0.28 per cent to close at 941.21 points, recovering from its intraday low of 933.59 points.

The southern market index has also extended its growth for a seventh session, making a total gain of 5.67 per cent.

Losing stocks dominated the major exchange on Tuesday as they outnumbered gaining stocks by 148 to 128 and 54 others remained unchanged.

More than 359.5 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ8.85 trillion (US$393.2 million).

The figures increased by 42.4 per cent in trading volume and nearly 49 per cent in trading value compared to Monday.

The sharp increase of the trading liquidity on Tuesday was attributed to trading of the Development Investment Construction JSC (DIC) shares with more than 128 million shares of the company being traded through order-matching transactions.

The Ministry of Construction had previously announced it would sell 118 million shares in the company, equal to nearly 50 per cent of DIC’s capital, between November 17 and December 16. The construction firm’s shares, listed under code DIG, surged 6.9 per cent on Tuesday.

The food and beverage industry was the major factor that helped the stock market advance despite strong investors’ profit-taking after the market had rallied in the previous six sessions.

The sector was driven up by brewer Sabeco (SAB) and consumer goods producer Masan (MSN), which jumped 5.6 per cent and 2.9 per cent, respectively.

On the opposite side, investors’ strong profit-taking sent a number of large-cap stocks down, including PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD), MBBank (MBB) and DHG Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG) and insurance-finance group Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH).

Analysts at Bảo Việt Securities Co (BVSC) said in the company’s daily report that they were quite doubtful about the future development of the VN Index though it successfully extended gains on Tuesday.

Trading conditions were negative as the market was dominated by declining stocks while liquidity would remain unchanged without the strong boost from the trading of DIG shares, they said.

“That proved investors began to take a cautious stance again as their short-term opportunities in mid-cap and small-cap stocks started minimising while the market still depended too much on large-cap stocks,” BVSC said.

“The benchmark index has faced strong challenges in the last few sessions and that means the market would begin its short-term correction in the next few days.”

The HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange fell 0.47 per cent to end at 111.50 points, ending its four-day increase of total 3.7 per cent.

More than 62 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ801.9 billion. — VNS