HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam’s benchmark VN Index recovered from Monday’s decline with a robust increase in trading liquidity amid heavy profit-taking pressure.

The VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange gained 0.58 per cent to close Tuesday at 1,018.79 points.

The southern market index fell 0.42 per cent on Monday.

The HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange lost 0.45 per cent to end at 115.00 points.

The northern market index has made a two-day decline of total 1.1 per cent.

Nearly 417.3 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VNĐ18.2 trillion (US$808.4 million).

The figure included around 110 million shares of consumer company Masan being purchased by foreign investors, worth VNĐ11 trillion.

Foreign investors on Tuesday net purchased VNĐ11.1 trillion worth of Vietnamese stocks. They posted a net buy value of VNĐ31.2 billion on Monday.

Real estate companies, plastic and rubber firms and banks remained the major drivers of the stock market.

The three sector indices rose between 1 per cent and 2.6 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Gainers in those sectors included Bình Minh Plastic JSC (BMP), property developer Vingroup (VIC), PetroVietnam Gas (GAS) and Vietcombank (VCB).

Those stocks were also among the nine gaining large-cap stocks in the VN30 basket, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation.

Other gaining industries were petroleum, food and beverages, and seafood processing.

However, selling pressure that arose in early afternoon session indicated the “more cautious sentiment of investors”, Bảo Việt Securities JSC (BVSC) said in its daily report.

“The market breadth was negative amid heavy profit-taking pressure on many stocks,” BVSC said.

The large-cap VN30 Index inched down 0.11 per cent to finish Tuesday at 987.88 points with two-thirds of the 30 stocks declining.

“The supply slightly outgunned the demand (with 256 declining stocks against 198 gainers), making the trading condition negative,” Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities JSC (SHS) said in a note.

However, the capital flow remained positive even if trading of Masan shares was excluded from the market’s total number, proving that investors were still willing to buy in stocks at the moment, SHS added.

“If the VN Index turns negative, it may head down to the range of 1,010-1,015 points that is expected to trigger bargain hunting among investors,” SHS said.

Therefore, the VN Index may extend growth on Wednesday and look to test the old peak of 1,025 points, it added. — VNS