Financial shares lift market amid virus fears
Financial shares lift market amid virus fears
Vietnamese shares continued recovering on Thursday, driven by the banking-financial sector amid the spread of the novel coronavirus. 
The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange gained 0.77 per cent to end at 896.22 points.
The VN-Index inched down 0.14 per cent on Wednesday but showed signs of recovery at the end of the day.
More than 140.6 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND1.95 trillion (US$84 million).
The banking-financial sector was the main driving factor of the stock market.
Securities and banking indices were up 1.5 per cent and 2.8 per cent, according to vietstock.vn.
Among the best-performing bank stocks on HoSE were Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and VPBank (VPB).
Brokerage stocks also performed well as SSI Securities (SSI), HCM City Securities (HCM) and VietCapital Securities (VCI) rising between 1.5 per cent and 3.7 per cent.
Other sectors that also advanced included food and beverage, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and transportation and logistics.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was up 1.73 per cent to close at 115.99 points.
The HNX-Index had gained a total of 6.95 per cent since last Thursday.
More than 77.7 million shares were exchanged on the northern bourse, worth VND888.4 billion.
The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm.
