Vietnamese shares added value nationwide in the last trading session of the week but suffered low liquidity, as oil and bank shares took the spotlight in spite of previous steep declines.

On the HCM City Stock Exchange (HOSE), the VN-Index increased by 1.42 per cent and closed at 983.17 points on Friday, reversing from its decline of 1.18 per cent on Thursday.

According to Bao Viet Securities Company (BVSC), after sliding in the beginning, the index quickly rebounded and stayed on uptrend with stronger momentum towards the final minutes.

Therefore, the market is expected to have positive movement next week, BVSC said.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index rallied by 1.65 per cent to 111.98 points after losing 1.73 per cent on Thursday.

More than 170 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND4.4 trillion (US$191 million).

Large-cap stocks performed well as the VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity, rose 1.81 per cent at 973.05 points.

Bank stocks strongly recovered in Friday’s session. VPBank (VPB) surprisingly rocketed by 6 per cent while other leading banks also had impressive performances, including Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG) and Military Bank, rising between 2.2 per cent and 3.1 per cent.

The energy sector also played a crucial role in driving the market up, with prominent stocks soaring, namely Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (1.3 per cent), PetroVietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation (1.8 per cent), PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (4.2 per cent), PetroViet Nam Coating JSC (2 per cent) and Drilling Mud Joint Stock Corporation (3.6 per cent)

Seventeen of the 20 sectors saw share prices increase, such as banking, securities, construction and energy, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Foreign investors’ buying activities intensified. They were net buyers of VND175.78 billion on dairy firm Vinamilk (VND 69.62 billion), steel maker Hoa Phat Group (VND46.22 billion) and PetroVietnam Gas JSC (VND27.69 billion).

At the same time, they sold a net of VND40.12 billion on the HNX.

According to Viet Dragon Securities Company (VDSC), the indexes increased quite strong on low volumes on Friday but this may be just a technical recovery session in an intermediate - term downtrend.

Therefore, investors should quickly reduce the proportion of stocks in the portfolio as soon as weak signals appear, VDSC said.

Meanwhile, BVSC predicted in its daily report that with a rebound in the last session of the week, VN-Index may see slight rise in early next week. Q2 Income statement season and net asset value (NAV) determination of funds are good news supporting VN-Index next week. — VNS