Shares continued to move into positive territory on the HCM Stock Exchange on October 27, although trades remained sluggish in both Hanoi and HCM City .

In HCM City , the VN-Index closed higher by 0.64 percent, concluding the session at 414.75 points. Advancers outnumbered decliners by 116-95, but the value of trades tumbled 38.6 percent from Oct. 26's total to just 347.75 billion VND (16.6 million USD). The volume of trades reached only 21.8 million shares.

Among the 10 leading shares by capitalisation, insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH) soared to its ceiling price, while Vietinbank (CTG) gained 4.6 percent and real estate developer Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG) advanced by 1.8 percent. Others lost value or closed unchanged.

Real estate developer Hoang Quan (HQC) was the most-active share on the HCM City board, with more than 1.9 million traded.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index dropped by nearly 0.3 percent to close at 67.78. Only 21.3 million shares were exchanged, for a value of merely 202.3 billion VND (9.6 million USD) – 7 percent below Oct. 26's level.

Kim Long Securities Co (KLS) and VNDirect Securities Co (VND) were the most-active shares on the northern bourse, each with around 1.5 million shares exchanged.

Foreign investors were net buyers on both bourses, although their combined net buys totalled only 4.57 billion VND (217,600 USD).

Despite recent declines, the domestic market has proven to be attractive to foreign investors.

"The Vietnamese stock market is currently the cheapest in the Asian region to invest in," said VinaCapital Investment Management's chief economist Alan T Pham.

However, investors were still waiting for more economic indicators to be released before making a decision, Pham said.

The National Assembly's Economic Committee announced that the year's inflation rate would exceed the target ceiling of 18 percent, predicting a rate of nearly 19 percent, largely due to increases in electricity rates.

The value of the dong has also continued to decline against the US dollar, a factor likely to re-ignite inflation. The dong has dropped by another 40 VND per dollar over the past two days, equal to its devaluation over the entire previous week.

The interbank foreign exchange was adjusted on October 27 for the 13th time in October to 20,788 VND per dollar, an accumulative depreciation of 0.79 percent since last month. The adjustment has caused investors to doubt whether the currency devaluation could be kept within 1 percent before the end of the year, as the central bank has vowed. /.