Vietnamese shares gained strongly after a sharp decline the previous day switched on bargain-hunting mode among investors, lifting almost 20 sectors on the market.

The benchmark VN Index rose 2.30 per cent, or 25.23 points, to end Friday at 1,119.86 points. It had fallen total 5.1 per cent in the previous two sessions.

That was also the strongest daily growth for the VN Index since it made a 2.4 per cent gain on March 6. The VN Index ended down 3.2 per cent after a volatile trading week.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange increased by 1.16 per cent to close at 132.58 points. The northern market index dropped total 2.4 per cent in the previous two trading days.

The HNX Index edged down 0.5 per cent in total after the last five trading sessions of the week compared to last week.

A strong period of bottom-fishing among investors helped boost the number of gaining stocks to 279 across the two bourses, against 187 declining ones.

More than 259.4 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND10 trillion (US$444.7 million), up slightly in volume and up 22 per cent in value compared to Thursday.

Positive confidence among investors helped shares in 19 of the 20 sectors end in positive territory, with the financial-banking and real estate sectors making the biggest gains.

The banking, insurance, brokerage and property sector indices advanced between 1.4 per cent and 4.1 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Large-cap stocks also improved as the large-cap VN30 Index rose 2.19 per cent or 23.36 points to 1,089.45 points with 24 of the 30 largest shares by market capitalisation advancing.

Gainers among those stocks included Vietinbank (CTG), Vietcombank (VCB), insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BID), Saigon Securities Inc (SSI) and property developer Vingroup (VIC).

A strong purchase by investors of stocks that declined in the previous two sessions was the main factor driving the market up on Friday, according to securities companies.

During the session, the VN Index fell as much as 1.51 per cent and the HNX Index dropped a maximum 0.6 per cent as investors were still cautious with the market volatility before taking off towards the end of the day.

“The VN Index faced strong selling pressure in the morning session, which may be due to fears from Thursday’s sell-off,” Viet Dragon Securities Co (VDSC) said in its daily report.

Investors “quickly regained confidence” and “bottom-fishing money flew into large-caps”, making the indices soar, VDSC said.

Bao Viet Securities Co (BVSC) said: “The rebound on Friday opened up an opportunity that the VN Index may continue on an uptrend next week.”

“However, this recovery would be not sustainable and strong enough” to keep the market sentiment positive and “the index is likely to drop to lower support thresholds in the short term.” — VNS