A Vietcombank office in the city of Cần Thơ. Vietcombank (VCB) gained 1.89 per cent on Wednesday. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Liêm

HÀ NỘI — The VN-Index increased on Wednesday but its rally gradually dropped in the afternoon as selling pressure hit blue-chips.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange gained 0.14 per cent to close Wednesday at 978.17 points.

Nearly 198 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ3.6 trillion (US$154 million).

The VN-Index gained 0.05 per cent to close at 976.79 points on Tuesday.

Market breadth was negative on Wednesday with 139 shares gaining and 172 declining.

The large-cap VN30-Index decreased by 0.27 per cent to stand at 895.06 points.

The VN-Index faced a similar situation as the previous session as it gained strongly in the morning and gradually dropped to close to the reference level in the afternoon. Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID) and Vingroup (VIC) were the three main stocks supporting the market's uptrend.

Many large-caps suffered selling pressure and ended down such as Vinamilk (VNM) (-0.7 per cent), Vinhomes (VHM) (-0.3 per cent), the Việt Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX) (-1 per cent) and Masan Group (MSN) (-0.7 per cent), but no sharp decreases were recorded.

According to Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI), in the 11 months from December 2018 to October 2019, about US$277 billion was withdrawn from stock investment funds globally, the greatest and longest withdrawal of capital in the last your years. At the same time, bond investment funds received an inflow of $372 billion.

The gloomy prospects of global economic growth coupled with the escalation of the US-China trade conflict has weakened investor sentiment, pushing money to safer investment channels like bonds and gold, causing the prices of these assets to rise sharply.

However, on Wednesday, foreign investors were net buyers of VNĐ72.84 billion on HOSE, including Hòa Phát Group (HPG) (VNĐ36.01 billion), Bank for Investment and Development (BID) (VNĐ18.34 billion) and Vincom Retail (VRE) (VNĐ17.98 billion). They were net sellers on the HNX with a value of VNĐ2.72 billion.

On a sector basis, 13 of the 25 sectors saw share prices rising, including wholesale, healthcare, real estate, banking, agriculture, plastic and chemistry and seafood processing.

On the opposite side, 12 of the 20 sectors saw share prices drop, including oil and gas, rubber production, food and beverage, construction materials, construction and logistics.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.73 per cent to end Wednesday at 103.23 points.

More than 19.8 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ242.6 billion.

The northern market index climbed 0.51 per cent to end Tuesday at 103.99 points. — VNS