Shares rose on the HCM Stock Exchange on Friday, led by banks but liquidity remained low on weak market sentiment.

The benchmark VN Index gained 0.32 per cent to close at 807.80 points, rebounding from a drop of 0.05 per cent on Thursday.

It recovered after losing 0.17 per cent to reach the intraday low level of 803.81 points.

The VN Index has made a weekly increase of 0.4 per cent.

Nearly 133 million shares were traded on the southern market, worth VND2.7 trillion (US$120 million), down 10.4 per cent in volume and a fifth in value compared to the previous session.

Market breadth was balanced with 120 gaining stocks, 123 losing ones and 76 ending flat.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the top 30 stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity, was up 0.38 per cent to 800.42 points.

Bank stocks lifted the VN30 up as they occupied four of the seven best-performing stocks in the VN30.

The highest gaining bank stocks were MBBank (MBB), Sacombank (STB), Vietinbank (CTG) and Vietcombank (VCB).

Shares of the four banks were up 4.5 per cent, 1.7 per cent, 1.1 per cent and 0.9 per cent, respectively.

Other successful stocks in the VN30 Index included logistics firm Gemadept (GMD), insurance-finance group Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), and leading IT firm FPT Corp (FPT).

Investor sentiment was also supported by foreign investors, whose net sell value dropped sharply to VND1.36 billion from Thursday’s value of VND286.3 billion.

According to BIDV Securities Co (BSC), trading focused on banks, real estate firms and construction companies and large-cap stocks that were supported by expectations for good third-quarter reports.

However, trading liquidity fell and the number of losing stocks exceeded gaining ones, showing that investors were still cautious and unwilling to join trading, BSC said in its daily report.

“The VN Index will continue to move sideways in the range of 800-810 points. We expect investors not to make risky investments before the market trend is addressed and liquidity increases.”

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX Index was up 0.95 per cent to end at 107.98 points. It fell 0.44 per cent on Thursday.

The northern market index increased marginally by 0.3 per cent from the previous week’s closing level.

More than 51.7 million shares were exchanged on the northern bourse, worth VND655 billion. – VNS