Brewer Sabeco's factory in Củ Chi District, HCM City. The largest brewer by market capitalisation was among blue chips that fell on Tuesday. - Photo tapchicongthuong.vn

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares advanced on Tuesday as attention shifted to companies with good earnings prospects amid a lack of supportive information.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange gained 0.52 per cent to close at 988.22 points.

The VN-Index lost 0.46 per cent on Monday.

More than 178.3 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ3.56 trillion (US$153 million).

Banks, securities firms, retail and technology companies were the main drivers of the stock market.

The four sector indices were up between 1 per cent and 2 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

All large-caps in the four sectors advanced, including Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Techcombank (TCB), VPBank (VPB), SSI Securities (SSI), HCM City Securities (HCM), Viet Capital Securities (VCI), FPT Corp (FPT) and Mobile World Investment Corp (MWG).

These companies were the centre of attention on Tuesday due to their third quarter earnings prospects, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its daily report.

Some banks were also among the first to report their third quarter earnings.

Vietcombank reported earnings of VNĐ17.52 trillion in pre-tax profit over nine months, up 51 per cent year-on-year.

Sacombank (STB) reported nearly VNĐ2.5 trillion worth of pre-tax profit in the same period, seeing growth in all of its key activities. TPBank (TPB) earlier announced its nine-month pre-tax profit had grown 50 per cent to VNĐ2.4 trillion.

Other industries that also progressed included real estate, insurance and building materials.

Despite the focus on these sectors, investors remained cautious due to little supportive news that could boost the market’s overall sentiment, TCSC said.

Key factors include the US-China trade talks this week. Investors are eyeing the negotiations to see if the two largest economies in the world can come up with a deal to resolve trade tensions, which have dragged the global economy back in the past two years.

Caution would continue dragging on the VN-Index over the next few days, and the benchmark would continue to struggle in the current range, TCSC forecast.

On the negative side, agriculture, mining and energy, seafood processing, utilities and electricity fell, including PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), logistics firm Gemadept (GMD), brewer Sabeco (SAB) and dairy company Vinamilk (VNM).

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was up 0.18 per cent to end at 103.92 points.

The northern market index fell 1.36 per cent on Monday.

Nearly 21.8 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ341 billion. – VNS