Shares continued to sway between gains and losses in the afternoon before closing slightly higher on both stock exchanges on June 18.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange closed up 0.07 percent at 498.88 points, ending a six-day falling streak.

Market conditions were negative, with 101 codes falling, 95 rising and 112 closing flat. The trading volume also dropped by 30 percent from a day earlier to nearly 55.8 million shares, worth 1.08 trillion VND (51.4 million USD).

Recovery of some heavyweight shares such as dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Vietcombank (VCB) and Saigon Securities Inc (SSI) helped rescue the index from another fall.

The VN30 tracking the top 30 shares on the bourse was also up 0.21 percent to 552.87 points.

Only twelve codes had trades of over 1 million shares, of which property developer Tan Tao Investment Industry Corp (ITA) was again the most active with 4.18 million shares traded at an unchanged value of 7,700 VND each.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also increased 0.26 percent to finish the session at 64.99 points despite opening low.

Speculative shares including PetroVietnam Construction (PVX), real estate FLC Group (FLC), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), VNDirect Securities (KLS) posted gains from 0.6-9 percent.

However, both market volume and value declined 20 percent from the previous session to 42.6 million shares worth over 349.3 billion VND (16.6 million USD).

Sai Gon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) continued to be the most active code here with 6.5 million shares exchanged at a price of 7,000 VND a share.

Foreign investors increased their sells on both markets on June 18, unloading a combined net sell of 150 billion VND (7.1 million USD) worth of shares.-VNA