Vietnamese shares bounced back on Thursday after Wednesday’s sharp fall sent stocks down to attractive prices, thus triggering investors to bottom-fish.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange gained 1.5 per cent to close at 1,050.25 points, recouping more than half of its loss in the previous session.

It suffered its worst decline rate in a year of 2.66 per cent on Wednesday to total a two-session loss of 2.7 per cent.

The minor HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange rose 1.22 per cent to end at 121.90 points after having decreased by a total of 1.3 per cent in the previous two days.

More than 364.6 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND8.74 trillion (US$388.4 million).

The trading figures were down 10.9 per cent in volume and 11.3 per cent in value compared to Wednesday’s numbers.

The market trading condition was positive with 246 gaining stocks against 220 declining, while 126 other stocks were unchanged.

Brokerage companies attributed the market growth to investors’ bottom-fishing to scoop up stocks that fell on Wednesday.

According to Viet Dragon Securities Company (VDSC), the sharp fall of the stock market on Wednesday may have resulted from investors’ profit-taking after the market had gained substantially in recent weeks.

As trading liquidity remained high and no news was strong enough to have negative impacts on the market, VDSC said the market was unlikely to decline further in the near future.

Such a market fall could offer opportunities to investors to purchase low-priced stocks before the market turned upward, it said.

BIDV Securities Co (BSC) said that investors made strong purchases for stocks that had fallen significantly on Wednesday and on the first trading half of Thursday, thus boosting the stock market.

Financial-banking, energy, food and beverage, and real estate stocks recorded the highest growth rates on Thursday to bolster the market’s increase, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Eximbank (EIB), Sacombank (STB), Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank (SHB) and Vietcombank (VCB) pushed the banking sector up, while strong gains were also recorded in brokerage firms such as Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), VNDirect Securities (VND) and HCM City Securities (HCM).

Real estate, food and beverage, and energy stocks that rose strongly included Vincom Retail (VRE), Thanh Thanh Cong Tay Ninh Sugar Co (SBT), dairy firm Vinamilk (VNM) and PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS).

However, the market’s strong growth on Thursday does not mean the market has turned fully positive as market trading liquidity fell in terms of both volume and value compared to the previous session, Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities Co (SHS) said.

“The market needs more time to stabilise at the current high levels and investors should be cautious with the highly volatile trading condition,” SHS said. — VNS