HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam’s benchmark VN-Index rose for the first time since the beginning of May as investors eyed financial and petro sectors following their downturns.

The VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) gained 0.58 per cent to close Friday at 952.55 points.

The VN-Index lost total 2.22 per cent this week. It had fallen total 3.33 per cent since the last trading day of April on April 26.

The Vietnamese stock market reacted positively to the growth of Chinese stocks on Friday after domestic funds in China bought in local assets to cushion the market.

A similar scenario also occurred in Việt Nam as investors looked for financial and banking stocks, which had been hit hard since the market re-opened on May 2.

Data on vietstock.vn showed shares of securities firms and banks made the biggest gains.

The two sector indices increased by 1.5 per cent and 0.8 per cent.

Leading the brokerage industry were VietCapital Securities (VCI), Agribank Securities (AGR) and SSI Securities Inc (SSI).

The four firms’ shares rose between 1.2 per cent and 5 per cent.

VCI had lost total 17.5 per cent since April 19. SSI had declined by 5 per cent in the previous four days.

TPBank (TPB) jumped 4.7 per cent, Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) gained 2.9 per cent, and HDBank (HDB) increased by 1.7 per cent.

The market was also supported by petroleum stocks as oil prices were boosted by tight global supply outlook despite the rise of the US-China trade tension.

PetroVietnam Gas (GAS) added 1.2 per cent and PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD) advanced 2.3 per cent.

According to Thành Công Securities JSC (TCSC), Friday’s gain does not mean the market has made its consolidation and finished its correction period.

Low trading liquidity and net foreign selling are the two challenges for the market, TCSC said.

More than 114.6 million shares were exchanged on HoSE through order-matching transactions, worth nearly VNĐ2.32 trillion.

The figures were quite low compared to the average of the last 20 trading days.

Foreign investors net-sold VNĐ219.4 billion worth of HoSE-listed stocks. They net-sold nearly VNĐ556 billion in total after four trading days.

“It’s too early to talk about a market reversal at the moment,” Viet Dragon Securities (VDSC) said in a note. “It is more likely a bull trap.”

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was up 0.57 per cent to end at 105.86 points.

The northern market index decreased by 0.61 per cent on Thursday.

More than 33.5 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VNĐ432.3 billion. – VNS