The building of Vinamilk in District 7, HCM City. Shares of the dairy producer soared more than 2 per cent in the last session of the week, helping lift the market sentiment. Photo vinamilk.com.vn

 HÀ NỘI — The Vietnamese stock market finished the choppy week higher, recovering after strong selling pressure pushed the VN-Index back to the 1,113-point level.

Foreign investors also returned to be net buyers on two main exchanges. 

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the benchmark VN-Index gained 14.65 points, or 1.32 per cent, to close at the session high of 1,128.54 points. It recouped most of Thursday’s loss of 14.78 points. 

The reversal was likely to be driven by bargain-hunting demand as the market has corrected strongly recently. The index lost more than 37 points on Tuesday, erasing all of its rallies since the beginning of the year. It kicked off the year at 1,043.9 points and hit the highest of the year at 1.245.5 points on September 6. 

The breadth of the market was positive, with 245 stocks increasing while 75 declined. 

During the session, investors poured nearly VNĐ12.8 trillion (US$524.7 million) into the southern bourse, which was equal to more than 621.6 million shares traded on the exchange. 

The VN30-Index, tracking the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, also climbed 15.31 points, or 1.36 per cent, to 1,139.78 points. 

Twenty-six ticker symbols in the VN30 basket inched higher, while only one ended low. And three stocks stayed unchanged. 

The top five stocks leading the market’s uptrend today were still in the attractive industries: real estate, banking and manufacturing. 

In particular, Vinhomes gained the most in terms of market capitalisation, up nearly 3.4 per cent, followed by Vietcombank (VCB) with an increase of 1.07 per cent, Vinamilk (VNM) up 2.06 per cent, BIDV (BID) up 1.44 per cent and Vietinbank (CTG) rose 2.14 per cent. 

Securities stocks also witnessed a positive trading session today, with VNDirect Securities JSC (VND) and VIX Securities JSC (VIX) hitting the maximum intra-day gain of 7 per cent, while SSI Securities Corporation (SSI),  Saigon - Hanoi Securities JSC (SHS) and Hồ Chí Minh City Securities Corporation (HMC) jumped at least 3 per cent. 

Other stock groups, including retail, information technology, and logistics, performed well.

Analysts from SHS said that the short-term correction trend is unlikely to end, as the market's upward momentum is at a low level and the short-term recovery efforts are technical and unsustainable.

“From a medium-term, the uptrend is facing a risk of ending as the VN-Index is still trading below the 1,135-point level. The market may enter a state of finding a new equilibrium point to accumulate and this process will take more time and technical recovery efforts,” SHS added. 

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index also finished higher at 230.45 points, an increase of 2.44 points, or 1.07 per cent. 

Meanwhile, foreign investors were net buyers on the market after net buying a value of nearly VNĐ56 billion on both main exchanges. Of which, they net bought nearly VNĐ135.3 billion on HoSE, but net sold over VNĐ78.5 billion on HNX.