HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares bounced back on Wednesday after two consecutive bearish sessions sending stocks down to attractive prices, thus triggering investors to bottom-fish.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange inched up 0.31 per cent to close at 988.94 points, reversing from its loss of 5.3 per cent from the last two sessions.

The minor HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange rose 1.19 per cent to end at 118.11 points after having decreased by a total of 3.8 per cent in the previous two days.

More than 230.3 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VNĐ7.3 trillion (US$319 million).

The market trading condition was positive with 249 gaining stocks against 202 declining, while 293 other stocks were unchanged.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the southern city’s 30 largest shares by capitalisation and liquidity, rose 1 per cent to 968.54 points. There were 20 gainers against 8 decliners in the basket.

Major large-cap stocks rescued the market, with earners including budget carrier Vietjet (VJC), real estate company Đất Xanh Group JSC and insurer Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH).

Financial-banking, securities, insurance, retail, rubber products and construction material stocks recorded the highest growth rates on Wednesday to bolster the market’s increase, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Vietinbank (CTG), Vietcombank (VCB) and JSC Bank For Investment And Development Of Việt Nam (BIDV) pushed the banking sector up, while strong gains were also recorded in brokerage firms such as Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), HCM City Securities (HCM) and VNDirect Securities (VND) notably hitting the ceiling prices, reaching the daily rise limit of 7 per cent.

The food and beverage industry posted a growth of 2.2 per cent on Wednesday, partly thanks to the news that pork prices rose sharply. Compared to 2017, live pig prices have more than doubled. Pork prices in May continued to increase by 10 per cent from April.

According to Bảo Việt Securities Company (BVSC), the increase in pork prices in recent days is due to a sharp decline in supply as livestock farmers reduced their stocks or stopped breeding.

Pork accounts for about 7 per cent of the CPI basket of goods. As a result, a 10 per cent increase of pork prices could have substantial impact on the overall CPI in May (about 0.7 per cent), BVSC said in its daily report.

The company said this macroeconomic news could put adverse influence on investor sentiment in the short term.

On the negative side, the darling of the market on Tuesday, Vinhomes JSC (VHM) suddenly plunged 6.7 per cent to reach VNĐ110,300 per share. In the morning session, the stocks hit the daily decline limit of 6.9 per cent.

Vingroup shares slipped 3.2 per cent to close at VNĐ103,000. It also hit the floor price of VNĐ99,000 in the morning.

The slump of the two largest companies by market capitalisation slowed down the market’s upward trend. — VNS