HÀ NỘI – Banks and petroleum companies drove the Vietnamese stock market up on Friday while caution still weighed on overall sentiment ahead of the US-China talks at the G20 summit.

The benchmark VN Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange inched up 0.12 per cent to close at 898.19 points.

The southern market index had lost 2.28 per cent in the previous three straight days. It declined a total of 1.76 per cent this week.

The HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange gained 1.98 per cent to end at 103.01 points, recovering from a three-day decline of 2.27 per cent.

The strong growth on Friday helped the northern market index finish this week equal to last week’s end of 103.01 points.

Shares of banks and energy firms were the main drivers of the stock market thanks to share purchasing plans and rebounding oil prices.

The two industry indices grew by 1.8 per cent and 2.6 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

HDBank (HDB) and VPBank (VPB) led the banking sector up, soaring 7 per cent and 6.8 per cent, respectively.

HDBank general director Nguyễn Hữu Đặng has registered to buy 500,000 HDBank shares and the deal is expected to complete by the end of this month.

VPBank chairman Ngô Chí Dũng and his mother have offered to buy 21 million VPBank shares between November 21 and December 21.

HDBank and VPBank shares had hit their lowest prices of VNĐ28,000 and VNĐ19,000 per share on Thursday since listing on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange in January 2018.

Other bank stocks with strong gains included MBBank (MBB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) and Vietinbank (CTG).

Petroleum stocks benefited from a rebound of oil prices.

Brent crude advanced 1.8 per cent to trade at $67.86 a barrel, having totalled a three-day gain of 3.6 per cent from its one-month low of nearly 20 per cent.

Among local petroleum stocks, PetroVietnam Gas (GAS) surged 5.1 per cent, PV Drilling and Well Services (PVD), PV Technical Services (PVS) and PV Coating (PVB) gained between 1.7 per cent and 3.8 per cent.

However, investor sentiment was still weak due to “low liquidity” and “net selling of foreign investors” while investors were keeping eyes on the upcoming US-China talks at the G20 summit held in Argentina later this month, according to BIDV Securities JSC (BSC).

Nearly 195 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VNĐ3.93 trillion (US$174.7 million), lower than the figures made on Thursday.

Foreign investors posted a net sell value of VNĐ123.3 billion, down 75.4 per cent from Thursday’s figure of VNĐ501.5 billion. – VNS