Financial stocks’ strong recovery lifted both local exchanges on Thursday, but the market’s short-term prospects remained gloomy following the outflow of money.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 1.24 per cent to close at 935.85 points, rebounding from its 0.31 per cent loss on Wednesday.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange advanced 0.92 per cent to end at 111.47 points. The northern market index also bounced back from a four-day decline of 3.5 per cent.

More than 217.4 million shares were traded on both local exchanges, worth VND4.67 trillion (US$207.5 million).

Trading figures on Thursday posted an increase of 1.1 per cent in volume and a slight drop in value compared to the previous session.

Market trading condition was positive as the number of gaining stocks was almost double that of losing stocks, 306 to 157, while 111 others were unchanged.

Of all 20 sectors, financial stocks – led by banks and securities firms – were the best performers in the market. There was also growth among food and beverage producers, property developers and building contractors.

Eight of the 10 bank stocks on both local exchanges advanced, lifting the banking sector index by 3.1 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Among them, Vietinbank (CTG) posted the highest growth rate of 5.5 per cent, followed by Sacombank (STB), MBBank (MBB) and Vietcombank (VCB).

Bank stocks had performed poorly in the past two weeks. CTG had lost 14.5 per cent since it touched its record high of VND24,400 on November 30 while VCB had declined by 9.3 per cent from its all-time peak of VND48,500.

The best performers among securities shares were Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities (SHS), FPT Securities (FTS), Viet Dragon Securities (VDS) and VNDirect Securities (VND).

Other gaining stocks included digital retailer Mobile World (MWG), dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), food and beverage Masan (MSN), marble producer Vicostone (VCS) and road contractor Tasco JSC (HUT).

Energy firms and Viet Nam’s largest brewer Sabeco shares were among those that suffered from profit-taking.

PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD) and PetroVietnam Gas (GAS) lost 0.9 per cent each, while PetroVietnam Coating (PVB) fell 1.2 per cent.

Shares of brewer Sabeco (SAB) dropped 1.6 per cent after having gained a total of 7.2 per cent in the previous two sessions, indicating that investors were doubtful about Thai Beverage’s interest in buying the company’s stake at its upcoming share sale, Viet Dragon Securities (VDSC) said in a note.

In general, Thursday’s recovery was not enough to confirm the stock market has returned to its upward trend, as a significant amount of money was being drawn out of the market on margin calls, confirmed by the modest trading liquidity on Thursday, VDSC said.

“It means the investment flow that had continuously helped the benchmark VN Index set up its fresh 10-year highs will not return in the near future during the year-end period,” the note said. — VNS