PV Gas LPG storage tanks. The company's shares jumped on Tuesday, lifting the market's sentiment and paring the recent losses. — Photo kinhtedouong.vn

The stock market finished higher on Tuesday, paring losses set in the recent sessions, as investors seized opportunities for bargain-purchasing.

The market benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) rose 646 points to 981.65 points, a 0.66 per cent increase. It had lost a total of 58.56 points in the last four sessions.

It extended the downtrend in the morning trade and closed the trade at 962.92 points, the lowest since October 25.

Even though the benchmark ended higher, there were still more stocks heading toward the bearish trend. Of which, 188 stocks declined on the southern bourse, while 149 stocks added points.

Liquidity remained low with over VND10.3 trillion (US$417 million) worth of shares, equivalent to a trading volume of 660.7 million shares, traded on HoSE.

The index’s reversal was mainly driven by some large-cap stocks, especially in banking and manufacturing industries. The VN30-Index posted a gain of 7.24 points, or 0.74 per cent, to 980.09 points.

Twenty-three of the 30 biggest stocks in the VN30 basket edged up, while seven ticker symbols hit lower.

Statistics from the financial website vietstock.vn showed that BIDV (BID) led the market’s rally with a gain of 4.8 per cent. The other four stocks in the top five stocks influencing the general trend were Vietcombank (VCB), PV Gas (GAS), Mobile World Investment Corporation (MWG) and Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR). The stocks were all up at least 1.11 per cent.

Also contributing to the bullish sentiment, big names like Vietinbank (CTG), Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB), Masan Group (MSN) and Sacombank (STB) were also up in a range of 1.78-6.13 per cent.

However, the rally was capped by lingering selling force that mostly weighed on real estate and steel stocks. Specifically, Novaland (NVL) witnessed the biggest loss, down 7 per cent, the maximum daily fall in the southern bourse HoSE. It was followed by Hoa Phat Group (HPG) and Phat Dat Real Estate Development JSC (PDR).

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also rebounded from the recent downtrend. It closed the day at 199.77 points, a gain of 1.21 points, or 0.61 per cent.

During the session, over 56.9 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VND840.08 billion.

Foreign investors continued to inject cash flows into the market as they net bought more than VND600 billion worth of shares on both main exchanges. Of which, they net bought a value of VND523.72 billion on HoSE, and VND101.68 billion on HNX. — VNS