Vietnamese shares inched up on Wednesday as investors sought safe investment in banks, retailers and construction companies. — Photo Internet

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares inched up on Wednesday as investors sought safe investment in banks, retailers and construction companies.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange gained 0.14 per cent to close at 965.93 points.

The VN-Index fell a total of 3.28 per cent over three straight days since last Friday.

Shares of banks, retailers and construction companies became attractive to investors on Wednesday.

The three sector indices gained between 0.8 per cent and 3.3 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Investors may be looking for short-term earning opportunities in those sectors amid the uncertainty of the global markets.

The Chinese yuan broke its 11-year low early this week amid rising tensions in US-China trade relations, putting pressure on Việt Nam’s macro-economic condition and equities market.

However, large-cap stocks performed well enough to cushion the market.

The VN30-Index that tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market value and trading liquidity was also up 0.25 per cent to 868.27 points.

Ten of the 30 stocks in the VN30 basket advanced while 18 declined.

Gainers in the basket included Vietcombank (VCB) (+2.8 per cent), Mobile World Group (MWG) (+3.6 per cent), Vinamilk (VNM) (+0.7 per cent), Hòa Phát Group (HPG) (+1,6 per cent), Novaland (NVL) (+1.2 per cent) and Sabeco (SAB) (+0.3 per cent).

Worries about the uncertainty of the stock market sent trading liquidity to a modest level.

More than 219 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ7.7 trillion (US$329 million).

According to Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities Co (SHS), the market recovered with a slight increase, accompanied by modest liquidity, which suggested that today was only a technical recovery.

Risks remain and indices would soon correct if the pillar stocks could not maintain rising momentum, SHS said in its report.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was unchanged at 101.89 points.

The northern market index dropped a total of 2.43 per cent in the previous four days.

Nearly 28 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VNĐ403.5 billion.

According to Bảo Việt Securities Company (BVSC), the VN-Index will receive support at 955-960 points and recover in remaining sessions of the week. If so, the index will have to fill in the gap opened yesterday at around 973-978 points.

However, the market will possibly incur strong volatility. If violating the aforementioned support zone, the index will likely drop to deeper support zones in the short term, BVSC said.

The market has faced disadvantages as foreign investors have become net sellers recently. Stock exposure should be maintained at 30-35 per cemt of the portfolio. Investors with high proportions of stocks may take advantage of the market’s recovery to lower stock exposure.

They should only buy during the market’s strong decline to our aforementioned support zones and focus on basic stocks, large-cap stocks, and sectors with macroeconomic benefits, including fishery, industrial zone real estate and information technology. — VNS