Bank tellers of Vietinbank (CTG) serve customers. Shares of Vietinbank (CTG) rose 2.4 per cent on Thursday. — Photo courtesy of Vietinbank

 HÀ NỘI — A rise in beaten down banking and energy stocks helped Vietnamese shares rebound on Thursday as investors pinned hopes on the Government’s drastic measures to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) gained 1.30 per cent to end trading at 801.13 points.

Nearly 189 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ3.2 trillion (US$138.2 million).

Market breadth was positive with 104 shares falling and 256 gaining.

The VN-Index had lost 2.77 per cent to end Wednesday at 790.84 points.

Việt Nam has recorded 48 new  COVID-19 cases of the disease since it resurfaced in the community last Saturday, 34 of them in Đà Nẵng.

As of Thursday the nation has had 464 cases, 95 of them active.

Hà Nội, where two men were reported to have contracted COVID-19 since Wednesday, has closed bars and banned crowded events like festivals and fairs from Wednesday night.

The two patients, one a 23-year-old from Nam Từ Liêm District and the other a 76-year-old from Tây Hồ District, are thought to have contracted the disease in Đà Nẵng, now Việt Nam's COVID-19 hotspot.

Investors hoped that drastic action of the Government in the fight against COVID-19 would help curb the pandemic and make investors have faith in the stock market again.

The large-cap VN30-Index, tracking the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and liquidity on HoSE, rose 1.48 per cent to close Thursday at 746.02 points.

In the VN30 basket, notable gainers were insurer Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH), FPT Corporation (FPT), steel maker Hoà Phát Group (HPG), Masan Group (MSN), Mobile World Group (MWG), Vinhomes (VHM), Vingroup (VIC), Vinamilk (VNM), Vincom Retail (VRE) and Novaland (NVL).

The banking and energy group outperformed on Thursday and supported the market’s rally with gainers including Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID), Techcombank (TCB), Military Bank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG), HDBank (HDB), Việt Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), PVPower (POW) and PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS).

According to Thành Công Securities Company, the short-term trend of the VN-Index is still unpredictable as investors are quite sensitive to the complicated movements of the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Investors should maintain a safe rate of stocks in their portfolios with 30-40 per cent for medium and long-term goals,” the company said.

On a sector basis, 22 out of 25 sectors on the stock market increased, including insurance, securities, banking, real estate, retail, information and technology, food and beverage, healthcare, mining, rubber production, seafood processing, logistics and construction materials.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index rose 1.17 per cent to end at 108.10 points.

It had lost 1.04 per cent to end Wednesday at 106.85 points.

Nearly 32.4 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VNĐ283.5 billion. — VNS