Vinhomes Smart City. Vinhomes shares rose 0.6 per cent yesterday. —Photo smartcityhanoi.com.vn

HÀ NỘI — Both national stock exchanges closed in positive territory on Thursday, but the growth was insignificant and liquidity continued to decline, indicating an unstable trend.

On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index inched up 0.03 per cent to close at 1,049.25 points. It decreased 0.6 per cent on Wednesday.

The market breadth was neutral with 179 stocks rising, 176 dropping and 122 closing flat.

Shares in the insurance and real estate sectors had returned to a rather positive position, but other groups such as securities, retail, iron and steel, construction and mining did not recover, weighing on the market.

Divergence continued to happen in many sectors, especially in the VN30 basket, which tracks the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, with 14 advancers and 13 decliners.

Top contributors to the VN-Index included Vinhomes (VHM), lender BIDV (BID), PV Gas (GAS) and insurer Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH). Their growth was less than 1 per cent but also offset the slump of other heavyweight shares which lost value including VPBank (VPB), Masan Group (MSN), Vietcombank (VCB) and Techcombank (TCB). Except VPB which declined 1.8 per cent, others were down by less than 1 per cent.

Many shares of the real estate group closed in the green but most only slightly increasing in price. Nam Long Investment (NLG) was among few gainers in both morning and afternoon session, closing up 1.5 per cent.

Liquidity continued to slide with nearly 374 million shares worth VNĐ6.6 trillion (US$280 million), down over 30 per cent in both volume and value compared to the previous session.

“This indicates that cash flow in general is still cautious when the market rallies,” said Phương Nguyên, a market analyst at Viet Dragon Securities Co.

Phương reckoned the market will continue to be in dispute around 1,050 points of the VN-Index in the next sessions.  

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index increased 0.37 per cent to end at 206.61 points. It lost over 1.1 per cent on Wednesday.

Trading volume and value here increased slightly, however, totalling 76.3 million shares worth VNĐ1.1 trillion, up 18 per cent in volume and 13 per cent in value.

Foreign traders returned to net buyers on the HCM City’s bourse but their buys were still weak with a net value of VNĐ53 billion. They were net sellers in Hà Nội but for an insignifcant value of VNĐ466 million.