A Thành Thành Công-Biên Hòa Sugar JSC's factory. The company shares were among few large-caps that advanced to lift the VN-Index on Wednesday. — Photo baodautu.vn

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares were buoyed on Wednesday as some large-caps helped spare the lack of market confidence.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange inched up 0.06 per cent to close at 987.79 points.

The southern market index gained 0.37 per cent on Tuesday.

The benchmark index lost as much as 0.17 per cent during the day, before picking up at the last minute.

Trading liquidity slid from the previous day in both volume and value.

More than 179 million shares were traded, worth nearly VNĐ3.5 trillion (US$150.5 million).

The marginally-moving index and lower trading liquidity indicated investors were cautious as there was little supportive news on the market, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in a report.

Local stocks were divided on corporate earnings reports, which are being released and show a clear picture of local firms, TCSC said.

Securities firms have disappointed investors so far with their third-quarter earnings reports.

The brokerage sector index dropped 0.4 per cent on Wednesday, data on vietstock.vn showed.

SSI Securities Corp (SSI), HCM City Securities Corp (HSC) and VNDirect Securities Corp (VNDS) had earlier announced their Q3 earnings dropped from the previous quarter.

The three firms also held the largest market shares in terms of stockbroking activity on the two local exchanges in the third quarter.

Supporting the southern market on Wednesday were some heavyweight stocks.

The large-cap VN30-Index, which tracks the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity, rose 0.31 per cent to 919.61 points.

Among the biggest gainers were food and beverage company Masan (MSN), logistics firm and port operator Gemadept (GMD), Thành Thành Công Sugar JSC (SBT) and steel producer Hòa Phát (HPG).

Bank stocks were mixed with gainers being HDBank (HDB), VPBank (VPB) and Military Bank (MBB) while Vietcombank (VCB), Techcombank (TCB) and Vietinbank (CTG) declined.

Investors with an appetite for risk have had troubles in recent days as market conditions remain tricky, VNDS said in a note.

The number of stocks with short-term growth prospects is getting fewer while the number of ground-losing stocks increases, proving investors are having trouble protecting their wealth, VNDS said.

Investors have no reason to jump into the market again now, VNDS added.

Wednesday's recovery does not change the market’s short-term downtrend and the upcoming days will be bumpy, the brokerage firm forecast.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index fell 0.34 per cent to end at 104.14 points.

The northern market index gained 0.47 per cent on Tuesday.

More than 18.6 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ232.7 billion.  VNS