Vietnamese shares extended gains for a second day, despite investors’ concerns about the upcoming US central bank meeting this weekend.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange gained 0.85 per cent to close Wednesday at 971.60 points.

The southern market index has increased a total 2.1 per cent in the past two trading days.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange rose 0.73 per cent to end at 109.39 points.

The northern market index advanced 0.86 per cent on Tuesday.

More than 195 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND4.36 trillion (US$194 million).

Large-cap stocks continued to drive the market up, posting good gains after they had suffered from market volatility since last Thursday.

The large-cap VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation, was up 0.69 per cent to touch 945.91 at the end of the day.

The large-cap index was driven by 23 gaining stocks, while only five stocks declined.

Among the best-performing blue chips were Binh Minh Plastic JSC (BMP), consumer staple firm Masan (MSN), logistics company Gemadept (GMD) and budget carrier Vietjet (VJC).

Those stocks were up between 1.6 per cent and 5.9 per cent.

On a sector basis, 18 of the 20 sector indices ended Wednesday on a positive note, led by petroleum, financial-banking, real estate and food and beverage, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Market sentiment temporarily improved as investors received their bottom-fished shares that had been purchased last Friday, Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities JSC (SHS) wrote in its daily report.

There was little pressure on the local stock market from sellers given the strong recovery of the global markets in the past two days, SHS said.

Market trading conditions on Wednesday were positive with 288 gaining stocks on the exchanges against 158 declining ones.

But many buyers were unwilling to make new purchases, SHS said, adding investors seemed to be turning their attention to the US central bank Fed’s meeting this Friday.

Foreign investors recorded net sell value of nearly VND100 billion, up 58 per cent from the previous session.

“Technically, the range of 970-990 points for the benchmark VN Index is seen as the strong resistance zone in next sessions as investors may want to realise their profits from picking up stocks in the previous volatile sessions,” SHS said. — VNS