Strong purchasing power continued to lift the Vietnamese stock market on Wednesday morning amid worries about the global spread of coronavirus.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange was up 0.91 per cent to end at 752.58 points.

The HNX-Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange gained 1.65 per cent to close at 102.39 points.

The VN-Index fell 0.28 per cent while the HNX-Index increased by 1.1 per cent on Tuesday.

More than 182.7 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VND2.35 trillion (US$101 million).

Of the total, more than 144.5 million shares were traded immediately in the day, worth VND1.77 trillion.

Strong purchasing power boosted shares in the banking, retail, insurance, technology, seafood processing, and transportation and logistics sectors.

Those industries’ indices were up between 1.3 per cent and 3.3 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Bank stocks were the best performing on Wednesday morning.

The banking sector was driven up by Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), Vietinbank (CTG) and Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank (SHB).

Those bank shares rose 2.4-5.3 per cent.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS