A Vietinbank office. The bank shares rose 2.5 per cent on Wednesday morning. — Photo vietnambiz.vn

Local shares picked up on Wednesday morning after being hit by profit-taking pressure.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) inched up 0.18 per cent to end at 901.09 points.

The VN-Index slid 0.05 per cent on Tuesday.

Nearly 367 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND4.43 trillion (US$192 million).

Drastic profit-taking pressure brought the benchmark down as much as 1 per cent in the morning session.

The market picked up as investors began hunting low-priced stocks while the market returned to operation after an error on Tuesday.

A technical error forced the southern bourse to cancel its At-the-Close (ATC) session, which determines stocks’ closing prices, on Tuesday.

HoSE said in a statement at 1.30am Wednesday that the error had been fixed and trading would return to normal.

Financial-banking stocks continued driving the market upwards on Wednesday morning.

The sub-indices that track the performance of banks, securities firms and insurance companies were up between 0.3 per cent and 1 per cent, according to vietstock.vn.

The best gainers in the three sectors included Vietinbank (CTG), Techcombank (TCB), Military Bank (MBB), insurer PVI Holdings (PVI), SSI Securities (SSI), VietCapital Securities (VCI), and MB Securities (MBS).

Gains of financial-banking stocks countered the losses in technology and information, seafood, hospitality and tourism, and logistics and transportation sectors.

The minor HNX-Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange gained 0.33 per cent to end Wednesday morning at 120.53 points.

The northern market index had risen total 5.71 per cent in the previous five trading days.

Nearly 45.5 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VND498 billion.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS