A customer at a branch of Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB) in Hà Nội, OCB rose 3.2 per cent on Wednesday. Photo courtesy of OCB

The VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) rose slightly by 0.01 per cent to close the morning trade at 1,277.07 points.

The market's breadth was negative with 155 stocks increasing while 218 stocks declined.

Over VNĐ13 trillion was poured into the southern market, equivalent to a trading volume of more than 407 million shares. This is the lowest level in nearly six months since the beginning of February.

“Liquidity cooled down while most stocks started to move sideways. Although the prospect of corporate earning results is strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, investors do not show signs of panic selling,” said financial news site vietstock.vn.

“As in previous outbreaks, the bottom of the correction phase in the stock market may fall in the peak of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the second-quarter earnings results season is gradually coming to an end, large enterprises will start publishing data by the end of this week,” it said.

Lê Quang Minh, director of investment analysis at Mirae Asset, attributed the recent low liquidity to investors’ fear of a resurgence of the disease.

“The pandemic has affected the expectations of many investors since the second quarter of this year, dampening their psychology and affecting their disbursement decisions. If in August Việt Nam can curb the rising infection cases, the cash flow will soon return,” he told financial news site cafef.vn.

Mirae Asset forecasted that many businesses in the industries of IT and logistics would continue to maintain good growth in the third quarter of 2021.

“Therefore, the slump in liquidity is only temporary and will soon recover in the near future,” the company said.

Towards the end of the session, the VN-Index's gain was significantly strengthened as banking stocks such as Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB), Techcombank (TCB), Military Bank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG), Sacombank (STB) and HDBank (HDB) extended their rises.

The VN30-Index, which tracks the 30 biggest stocks on the southern bourse, witnessed a loss of 0.17 per cent to close Wednesday at 1,407.50 points. Of the VN30 basket, 13 stocks climbed while 16 stocks slid.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also rose 0.08 per cent to 306.25 points.

Nearly 36 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VNĐ1 trillion. VNS