Shares closed higher on Thursday on the HCM Stock Exchange (HOSE) as blue chips gained ground, but liquidity continued to remain low.

The benchmark index’s gain narrowed, with the VN-Index rising marginally by 0.21 per cent to end at 1,036.69 points. It had soared 1.15 per cent on Wednesday.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index posted a loss of 1.18 per cent to end at 118.99 points, reversing from its increase of 1.89 per cent on Wednesday.

A total of 221.3 million shares, worth over VND5.7 trillion (US$250 million), were traded across the two markets.

Overall market condition was also positive with the number of gainers outnumbering the losers (234-214) while another 294 closed unchanged.

Tracking the southern bourse’s largest stocks by capitalisation and liquidity, the VN30-Index added 0.39 per cent, to end at 1,026.75 points, with 11 gainers and 18 losers.

On HOSE, the VN-Index had a sixth consecutive gaining session, and a fourth consecutive gaining session since Monday, thanks to the support from some key stocks, typically real estate developer Vingroup (VIC) and its affiliate Vinhomes (VHM), together with brewery Sabeco (SAB).

In addition, the newly-listed share Techcombank (TCB) suddenly reversed from its downward direction to hit the ceiling price, with 252,000 shares were overbought while nearly 1.4 million shares were traded through order matching, supporting the upward trend of the index.

Pillar stocks such as Masan Group (MSN), HDBank (HDB) and budget carrier Vietjet (VJC) also increased well, which was one of the main motivations for the growth of VN-Index.

Fertiliser stocks surprised investors, with PetroVietnam Ca Mau Fertiliser JSC (DCM), PetroVietnam Fertiliser & Chemicals Corporation (DPM) and Lam Thao Fertilisers and Chemicals JSC (LAS) all shooting up.

DCM was pushed up to the ceiling price, while the other two increased over 5 per cent. The main reason for the breakthrough of this group of stocks came from the Ministry of Finance’s decision to make fertiliser subject to VAT at the preferential rate of 5 per cent.

This was a good news for fertiliser producers as it means that the firms can now deduct the VAT they paid for the inputs. Previously, as the firms could not deduct this cost from their taxes, they had to increase the price of fertiliser by 5 to 8 per cent to achieve the same revenue.

World Bank has revised up Viet Nam’s GDP growth forecast by 0.3 percentage point to 6.8 per cent, in a report on global economic outlook issued on June 6.

According to Bao Viet Securities Company (BVSC), this was still a high growth rate and a positive support for the development of the stock market, with the improvement in production and business activities of enterprises.

“However, Viet Nam’s stock market is also forecast to have strong fluctuations in the future, due to the impacts of peripheral factors such as interest rate hikes of some central banks around the world, trade conflicts or rising geopolitical tensions,” BVSC added in its daily report.

The UPCOM Index on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) edged down 0.01 per cent to finish at 53.78 points. It had risen 0.33 per cent on Wednesday. — VNS