Vietnamese shares rose the most in more than three months on Thursday, with green appearing across the board, as domestic investors stepped in to pick battered stocks after recent deep losses.

Source: Bloomberg

The benchmark VN-Index traded in positive territory right from the opening session, ending up 1.36%, the strongest since November 1, 2019, at the intraday high of 938.54 – the highest in a week.

Sentiment was positive, driven by buying of bluechips, especially banking stocks such as VietinBank (CTG), Eximbank (EIB), HDBank (HDB), Military Bank (MBB), Sacombank (STB) and Techcombank (TCB).

Trading was heavy with 223.67 million shares worth VND4.24 trillion (US$182 million). At the close, 264 tickers gained while 83 lost and 52 stayed flat. Among the VN30 basket, comprised of the largest stocks on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, 24 ended up and six fell.

However, foreign investors were net sellers with VND215 billion (US$9.22 million), offloading Masan (MSN), Novaland (NVL) and Vingroup (VIC).

The HNX-Index of the Hanoi Stock Exchange, which is home to smaller stocks, ended up 2.57% at 105.84.

The VN-Index lost a combined 6.4% in the first three days after the one-week Lunar New Year break, with many heavyweights diving more than that, which triggered bottom-fishing.

Speaking at a press meeting on February 5, Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai said on that backdrop, her ministry worked to calm down investors’ nerves and crack down on speculation.  

Le Quang Minh, head analyst at Mirae Asset Securities, was quoted by CafeF as saying that good liquidity accompanied steep losses in recent days, and steep falls in the market prompted buying. “Many investors waited for dips to buy in.”