Stocks rebounded on the afternoon of May 5 after a hard fall on the previous day, lifting both stock indices in the two markets.

On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the benchmark VN-Index regained nearly 8 points to close the session at 552.65 points.

Blue chips gave the market momentum as its heavyweight stocks like VinGroup (VIC), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), FPT Corp (FPT), PV Gas (GAS), Hoa Phat Group (HPG) and banks like Vietinbank (CTG), Vietcombank (VCB) and BIDV (BID) rose substantially.

The VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, gained 1.55 percent to end the day at 585.43 points.

The market condition was positive with 191 shares climbing, 94 falling and 90 going flat.

Shares that dropped sharply on May 4, like HCM City Infrastructure Investment (CII), Hong Huy Investment Services (HHS), Kinh Bac City Development (KBC) and Dat Xanh Real Estate Service & Construction (DXG), also improved.

Analysts commenting on the financial website vietstock.vn partly attributed the rebound to the signing of the Vietnam-RoK free trade agreement on May 5, after two years of talks. The deal is expected to lift trade between the two nations to 70 billion USD annually by 2020.

According to analysts, the agreement will help promote Vietnamese exports to the Republic of Korea, thereby improving revenues for exporting businesses. The RoK is an important market for Vietnam seafood, textiles, footwear, furniture and agricultural products.

Liquidity improved slightly compared to the previous session with the market volume reaching nearly 117 million shares, worth 1.83 trillion VND (84.7 million USD).

Property developer FLC Group (FLC) was the most active stock with 13.4 million shares traded, and value rising by 4.12 percent to end at VND10,100 a share.

The rally in HCM City extended to the Hanoi market. The HNX-Index increased 0.36 percent to finish the session at 80.23 points.

The market breadth was relatively neutral with 98 stocks rising, 88 declining and another 177 closing unchanged.

Liquidity was down, however, as both market volume and value dropped 30 percent from the previous session's levels to end at nearly 41 million shares worth 424 billion VND (19.6 million USD).

FLF Joint Venture Global Investment Co (KLF) led trades here with 9 million shares exchanged and climbing 1.23 percent to end at 8,200 VND a share.

In contrast to domestic investors' moves, foreign investors turned heads, offloading shares on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange after many days of being net buyers. They were responsible for a net sell value of nearly 68 billion VND (3.1 million USD) worth of shares in the southern market. In the Hanoi market, however, they remained net buyers, picking up shares worth 7.2 billion VND (333,300 USD) by the end of the session.-VNA