Tech group CMC's technicians at work. The company's shares jumped 3 per cent on Wednesday. — Photo courtesy of the company

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares bounced on Wednesday, driven by banking-financial companies while investors sought short-term opportunities in mid-cap and small-cap sectors.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange rose 0.56 per cent to end Wednesday at 851.21 points.

The VN-Index had lost a total of 1 per cent in the previous three trading days.

Banking, securities and insurance stocks boosted the market.

The three industry indices gained between 0.9 per cent and 1.9 per cent, according to vietstock.vn.

The best performers in the three sectors included VietCapital Securities (VCI), VNDirect Securities (VND), Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH), Vietcombank (VCB) and Techcombank (TCB).

VCI jumped 3 per cent, while the other stocks advanced between 0.7 per cent and 1.8 per cent.

Other large-cap stocks also performed well to lift the blue-chip tracker VN30-Index up 0.31 per cent to 789.41 points.

The VN30 futures maturing on August 20 was up 0.63 per cent to 793 points.

Twenty-one of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity in the large-cap basket made gains while four declined.

Among gainers were PetroVietnam Power Corp (POW), Petrolimex (PLX), property developer Vincom Retail (VRE), and the two large-cap newbies Hoàng Huy Investment Financial Services (TCH) and Khang Điền House Trading and Investment (KDH).

Attention was paid to mid-cap and small-cap stocks, boosting the two sector indices up 0.88 per cent and 0.77 per cent, respectively.

Outstanding mid-cap and small-cap stocks were industrial real estate developer Sonadezi Long Thành (SZL), Bình Minh Plastic JSC (BMP), technology group CMC (CMG), retailer FPT Retail (FRT), and food firm Dabaco (DBC).

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index increased by 1.85 per cent to finish Wednesday at 119.19 points.

The northern market index inched down 0.16 per cent on Tuesday.

Nearly 306 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VNĐ4.84 trillion (US$209.5 million).

Foreign investors net-sold VNĐ40.6 billion worth of local shares, down 86 per cent from the previous day.

The market recovered on Wednesday with investors becoming more active, but the liquidity was still lower than the 20-day average, Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS) said in its daily report.

“That indicates the purchasing power is not strong and the market growth is quite fragile,” the company said.

“But the positive gap between the VN30-Index and its August futures shows investors are very confident in the chance of the market to keep growing,” SHS said.

“The VN-Index will continue rising to test the 875-point level again” and “any falls would not be too harsh,” SHS forecast. — VNS