Inside a Đà Nẵng Rubber JSC plant. Listed rubber firms on Wednesday made strong gains as the decline of oil prices may result in lower production costs in the short term. — Photo drc.com.vn

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares extended gains for the third day in a row on Wednesday, driven by financial-banking, retail, rubber and plastic companies.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange rose 1.28 per cent to end at 777.22 points.

The benchmark has rallied a total of 2.54 per cent so far this week.

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange advanced 1.10 per cent to close at 108.33 points.

The northern market index ended slightly down on Tuesday but has soared nearly 17 per cent in the last two weeks.

More than 364 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VNĐ5.35 trillion (US$227.2 million).

Of the total, investors transferred directly 304 million shares, worth VNĐ3.93 trillion.

The market was lifted by strong performances in the financial-banking, retail, rubber and plastic industries.

According to vietstock.vn, these sectors were up between 1.2 per cent and 3.4 per cent.

Rubber and plastic producers benefited from a slump in oil prices, which means production costs will decline in the short term.

Brent crude and US crude West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell 2.9 - 4.1 per cent to trade at $19.5 - 28.4 a barrel on Wednesday.

Among financial-banking stocks, Sacombank (STB) and TPBank (TPB) surged 5.5 - 5.9 per cent, insurer Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH) soared 5.2 per cent, HCM City Securities (HCM) jumped 3.1 per cent, and VietCapital Securities (VCI) leaped 4.6 per cent.

Good growth was also seen among retailers, technology firms and seafood processing businesses.

On the negative side, the energy and mining sector fell due to declining oil prices, while foreign investors net-sold more than VNĐ193 billion worth of shares on Wednesday.

Lifting market sentiment on Wednesday was the rebound of US stocks on expectations of the re-opening of the US economy, Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS) said in its daily report.

Local shares had rallied in the last two weeks, which boosted the VN-Index to nearly 780 points and triggered profit-taking, SHS said.

“Investors are betting the market will fall back the next day,” SHS said. “There will be struggles at 780 points for the benchmark.”

“Shares are being divided and investors have began making plans to making to exit large-caps and seeking opportunities in mid-cap and penny stocks.” — VNS