Blue chips once again caught the interest of investors on Jan. 13, following a massive sell-off of shares during the previous session on the HCM Stock Exchange, helping lift the VN-Index back above 500.

The Index gained over 2 percent on the day to close at 508.61 points. The value of trades continued high at 2.36 trillion VND (127.56 million USD) on a volume of 53.3 million.

Sacombank (STB) topped the market with 2.8 million shares traded, accounting for 5.33 percent of the total volume.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also bounced back by 2.2 percent to 174.34 points, with trading value rising to over 1.2 trillion VND (65.4 million USD), on a volume of nearly 35.3 million shares.

Kim Long Securities (KLS) claimed the spot as the most-active share of the day, with 5.7 million traded.

Foreign investors were net buyers on both exchanges by a combined total of 1.7 million shares.

Nguyen Hoang Hai, a market analyst with a HCM City-based brokerage, said that stronger profit-taking in recent days could be blamed in part on rumours about the prime rate and the liquidation of the Dragon Capital fund. “This kind of gossip is familiar to investors, but it can still drag on the market,” Hai said.

Dragon Capital head Dominic Scriven attempted to put a stop to the rumours on Jan. 13, which had investors whispering that the fund would sell off 1 billion USD worth of its portfolio.

Scriven denied the rumour outright, stressing that the fund had been raising capital to continue investing in the market.

“A medium-sized fund, which would have total assets of 50 million USD and focus on the energy sector, will probably be launched in mid-2010,” he said, as further proof of the fund’s long-term commitment to Vietnam .

Scriven suggested that the rumour could have stemmed from a recent change in the fund’s management board.

As reported in asianinvestor.net, John Shrimpton, one of the founding partners of Dragon Capital, had resigned amid a management reorganisation, and Scriven, another co-founder, had been appointed chief executive, a newly created role./.