Customers shopping at Vinmart, the supermarket chain of Masan Group. The company shares surged 3.8 percent yesterday, boosting the recovery of the VN-Index. (Photo: VNA) On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the benchmark VN-Index finished thechoppy session at 1,442.79 points, up 3.85 points, or 0.27 percent.
The index had lost for four consecutive sessions with shares across all sectorsfacing a sell-off, as investors planned to take profit before the Lunar NewYear holidays.
The market's breadth was positive, but liquidity still dropped sharply comparedto the previous session. On HoSE, 260 stocks rose, while 217 declined and 41ended flat.
Meanwhile, investors poured in nearly 23 trillion VND (1 billion USD),equivalent to a trading volume of over 637.6 million shares.
The benchmark's recovery was thanks to large-cap stocks as the 30 biggeststocks tracker VN30-Index posted a gain of 5.49 points, or 0.37 percent, to1,482.55 points.
Eighteen stocks of the VN30 basket rose, while ten declined and two stayedunchanged.
Masan Group (MSN) led the bullish trend, up 3.8 percent.
Also supporting the index's uptrend, Becamex (BCM), SSI Securities Corporation(SSI), Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR) and Vinhomes (VHM) reported positiveperformance, with gains of at least 0.78 percent and BCM shares even hit thebiggest intraday rise of 7 percent.
Other real estate stocks like the Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corporation(KBC) and securities stocks like VNDirect (VND) also saw big increases, up 6.73percent and 7 percent, respectively.
However, profit-taking pressure ahead of the Lunar New Year continued totrigger sell-offs in some pillar stocks, especially in the banking sector, suchas BIDV (BID), Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG), Sahabank (SHB) and MBBank(MBB).
Development Investment Construction JSC (DIG) also witnessed another sessionhitting the floor price.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index edged down 11.9 points, or2.83 percent, to 409.31 points, falling for a third straight session.
During the session, more than 101.6 million shares were traded on the northernbourse, worth nearly 1.8 trillion VND.
On the other hand, foreign investors net sold a value of nearly 5 trillion VND onHoSE, while they net bought a small amount of 4.64 billion VND on HNX./.
VNA
