Shares were mixed at closing on Thursday, higher on the HCM City Exchange but lower on the northern bourse, experiencing strong volatility with big variation in large-caps’ prices.

The benchmark index’s gain narrowed, with the VN-Index rising as much as 0.17 per cent to end at 943.97 points, making up a six-session gain of 5.7 per cent.

Contrary to strong demand in previous sessions, Thursday’s session witnessed fluctuation of the index.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index posted a loss of 1.26 per cent to end at 105.58 points, reversing from its increase of 2 per cent on Wednesday.

Nearly 249.2 million shares, worth over VND5.2 trillion (US$226 million), were traded across the two markets.

Overall market condition was positive with 236 gainers and 214 losers while another 291 closed unchanged.

Tracking the southern bourse’s largest stocks by capitalisation and liquidity, the VN30-Index added 0.61 per cent, to end at 941.09 points.

In the VN30 basket, 14 stocks gained and 11 stocks lost.

The benchmark index received support from steel maker Hoa Sen Group (HSG) which surged to the ceiling price of VND11,550 per share.

Other large-caps also gained strongly, including PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), Masan Group (MSN), insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Mobile World Investment Corporation (MWG), Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX) and Vinamilk (VNM). Notably, budget carrier Vietjet (VJC) was up 2 per cent thanks to the information that the firm on July 18 signed a contract with Boeing, purchasing 100 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft worth nearly $13 billion.

However, the market also underwent strong downward movement in the afternoon. Many large-cap stocks faced strong profit taking pressure after a long recovery period.

Bank stocks lost ground, slowing down the uptrend of the market.

Laggards in the banking group included Vietinbank, Military Bank, Vietcombank and VPBank.

Other blue-chips such as Phu Nhuan jewelry producer, PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation, brewery Sabeco, Saigon Securities Incoporate and real estate developer Vinhomes dropped, also putting pressure on the indices.

According to Bao Viet Securities Company, the market is predicted to move sideways in the next sessions with a wide divergence of stocks that depend on Q2 earnings results.

The UPCOM Index on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) inched up 0.85 per cent to finish at 50.59 points. It gained 1.50 per cent to finish at 50.16 points in the previous session. — VNS