Vietnam stocks rise as VIC and oil shares rebound

VIC was the clearest driver. After falling as much as 1.35% in morning trade, the stock swung higher and finished up 1.88% at 249,600 dong. It contributed more than 7 points to the index’s 8.8-point gain, underlining how dependent the benchmark remains on a handful of heavyweight names. VIC also led the market in value traded, with nearly 1.549 trillion dong in matched orders, while its afternoon turnover was nearly three times the morning’s.

The return of large-cap buying also showed up in the banking and blue-chip complex, with VCB, VPB, BID, GAS and BSR all improving in the second half of the session. But breadth stayed balanced, with 152 gainers and 158 decliners on HoSE, a sign the advance was not broad enough to suggest a decisive shift in risk appetite.

The more striking price action came from oil and gas. PVT hit its upper limit, while PVS rose 4.29%, BSR gained 2.66%, GAS advanced about 1.9% and PLX climbed 1.71%. BSR’s afternoon liquidity jumped more than 300% from the morning, pushing it into the market’s top 10 most-traded stocks on HoSE. That kind of rotation suggests investors were willing to chase sector-specific momentum even while overall market participation stayed subdued.

The backdrop was not supportive of a strong trend move. HoSE trading volume totaled just over 559.4 million shares, down more than 13% from the previous session, while value fell 17% to about 14.185 trillion dong. Excluding block trades, matched value dropped roughly 21%. Foreign investors remained net sellers by about 385 billion dong across the market, with HoSE accounting for nearly 399 billion dong in outflows. Securities firms’ proprietary desks also leaned to the sell side.

That combination matters for investors because it points to a market being held up by selective stock rotation rather than fresh, broad-based capital inflows. In practical terms, that makes the index vulnerable to reversals if VIC or other megacaps lose momentum, while also keeping pressure on sectors facing foreign selling such as banks and some property names. It also keeps attention on oil and gas as a relative pocket of strength, especially if commodity-linked stocks continue to attract domestic rotation.

For now, the session looks more like a tactical rebound than a structural improvement. The next test will be whether turnover and foreign flows improve enough to confirm that the afternoon recovery in VIC and the oil and gas names was the start of a more durable bid, or simply a short-lived chase in a thin market.