Shares reversed course to trade higher on Wednesday, strengthened by the strong increase of banking stocks that attracted a huge injection of cash flow.
On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the market benchmark gained 1.22 per cent, to 1,510.51 points on Wednesday.
The index had dropped 0.76 per cent to end at 1,492.31 points on Tuesday.
The market's breadth was negative with 203 gainers and 267 losers.
During the session, over 1.13 billion shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth nearly VND35.7 trillion (US$1.57 billion).
The VN30-Index, which tracks the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, rose 2.02 per cent, to 1,530.04 points.
Of the VN30 basket, 20 stocks rose, while eight inched lower and two ended flat.
According to financial news site vietstock.vn, banking stocks witnessed a booming session with many strong gainers, in which Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Tien Phong Bank (TPB) and Sacombank (STB) all hit the daily limit gain of 7 per cent.
HDBank (HDB) increased by 5.6 per cent, Vibank (VIB) rose by 4.9 per cent, Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) climbed 4.3 per cent, Vietcombank rose 0.8 per cent, Techcombank (TCB) increased 4 per cent, Military Bank (MBB) gained 4.7 per cent, VPBank (VPB) climbed 3.2 per cent and Vietinbank (CTG) gained 3.5 per cent.
On the other side, real estate stocks were hit strongly by massive selling, with a series of stocks pulled down to the floor prices, such as C.E.O Group JSC (CEO), An Duong Thao Dien JSC (HAR), Hoang Quan Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate Corporation (HQC), LDG Investment JSC (LDG) and NBB Investment Corporation (NBB).
Eleven out of 25 sector indices on the market recorded gains, including insurance, securities, information and technology, retail, oil and gas, banking and construction materials.
Losers, meanwhile, included wholesale, real estate, healthcare, agriculture, rubber production, food and beverage, seafood production, logistics and construction.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), meanwhile, the HNX-Index lost 1.65 per cent to end at 473.64 points on Wednesday.
The northern market index had lost 0.27 per cent to end Tuesday at 481.61 points.
During the trading session, investors poured nearly VND4.4 trillion into the bourse, equivalent to a trading volume of more than 135.1 million shares. — VNS