Customers make transactions at VietinBank's Lai Châu branch. Shares of the bank rose 2.6 per cent on Wednesday to VNĐ21,400 a share. — VNA/VNS Photo Trần Việt

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares climbed on Wednesday as foreign investors eyed large-cap stocks in the VN30 basket, despite a sharp drop in trading liquidity that indicated poor market sentiment.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange rose 0.92 per cent to close at 976.82 points.

The VN-Index was up 0.22 per cent on Tuesday.

Trading liquidity on the southern bourse slipped to 134 million shares in volume and VNĐ2.83 trillion (US$121.5 million) in value compared to nearly 155 million shares and VNĐ4.13 trillion during the previous session.

Large-cap stocks performed well to boost the market as the VN30-Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation, increased by 1.18 per cent to 888.65 points.

In the VN30 basket, 23 stocks advanced while only five ended in negative territory. Two stocks closed flat.

Net foreign selling was attributed to the increases by large-cap stocks.

Leading the large-caps’ growth was steel producer Hòa Phát Group (HPG), which jumped 4.5 per cent.

Foreign investors net bought Hòa Phát’s shares for VNĐ70 billion.

Following the largest steel producer by market capitalisation were food and beverage firm Masan (MSN), real estate firm Vincom Retail (VRE) and fuel distributor Petrolimex (PLX).

Those companies’ shares were up by between 0.1 and 2 per cent.

The brokerage, banking, oil and gas, and consumer staple sectors were the four best-performing industries.

Those sector indices gained between 0.9 per cent and 1.9 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Shares of financials and banks bounced back from their Tuesday downturn.

Techcombank (TCB), Vietinbank (CTG), Vietcombank (VCB) and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) were the driving forces in the banking industry.

Their shares went up by between 1.2 and 3.2 per cent.

HCM City Securities (HCM), SSI Securities Inc (SSI) and VNDirect Securities (VND) advanced to lift the brokerage sector.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index added 0.80 per cent to end at 107.14 points.

The northern market index has increased by a total of 1.42 per cent in the last two trading days.

More than 34 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ349 billion.

Modest trading liquidity is the major concern for the stock market as it proved investors are hesitant to be more active in trading, according to Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS).

Trading liquidity was still lower than the average of the last 20 trading days and the growth on Wednesday was more like a technical recovery, meaning there was nothing to confirm the market had returned to its uptrend, SHS said in the daily report.

“Investors were still cautious, especially as the market will close for the first three trading days of next week for the national holidays,” the company said.

The VN-Index was forecasted to extend its recovery and head to the 980-985 point range on Thursday, but the short-term outlook would be still pessimistic, SHS added. — VNS