HÀ NỘI — Shares rebounded on Friday as large-cap stocks returned to positive territory, especially the banking and securities sectors.

The benchmark VN-Index rose 2.01 per cent to close at 917.51 points. It had declined 1.7 per cent in the previous session.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX Index increased by 4.47 per cent to end Friday at 100.70 points after having fallen 3.6 per cent on Thursday.

More than 206.8 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ4.3 trillion (US$190.4 million).

The market trading condition was positive with 305 advancing stocks, 142 declining and 293 stocks closing flat.

Large-cap stocks performed well as the VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity, rose 2.47 per cent to 905.62 points.

Among the leading sectors, shares in the banking, securities and insurance industries were the best gainers with those indices rising 4.81 per cent, 5.24 per cent and 5.27 per cent, respectively.

Bank stocks were the darlings of the market on Friday, with JSC Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID), Vietinbank (CTG), Military Bank (MBB) and VPBank (VPB), all hitting the daily limit rise of 7 per cent, driving the whole market up.

Vietcombank (VCB), and HDBank (HDB), also made strong gains, up 5.8 and 6.7 per cent, respectively.

Two giants in the securities sector, Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation (HCM) and VNDirect Securities Corporation (VND), also saw share prices shooting to ceiling prices.

The market underwent a week of volatility with alternate ups and downs of the VN-Index due to investors’ anxiety amid global trade tensions. Although recovering on Friday, for the whole week, the VN-Index lost 40 points, or 4.1 per cent.

On Friday, President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports officially took effect. The tariffs were imposed on US$34 billion worth of goods. However, President Donald Trump said he would consider imposing additional tariffs on US$50, US$200, or even US$500 billion worth Chinese goods – equivalent to the total export turnover of Chinese imports in the US in 2017.

China announced it would retaliate by imposing tariffs on only US$34 billion of US imports (equal to the value of US tariffs imposed on China).

“Perhaps China’s response, which was not as tough as expected, has calmed investors’ sentiment,” Bảo Việt Securities Company said in its daily report.

From the view of BVSC, with current domestic ailing economy (weaker growth, debt reduction process, tightening hidden banks, rising bad debt), China will not aggressively fight against the US.

“BVSC forecast a 20 per cent chance of a trade war on a large scale,” it said.

After the bullish session on Friday, the market is likely to decline slightly early next week. Q2 income statement season may support the market but will trigger a wide divergence among stocks in the short term, BVSC added. — VNS