Many mid-cap shares hit the ceiling on July 30 afternoon, rescuing the VN-Index from another fall, but liquidity continued to slide as buying power in blue chips weakened.
The VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange gained just 0.3 percent to finish the session at 626.57 points.
The advancers outnumbered the decliners by 111-92 while other 103 closed unchanged.
Money focused on speculative stocks that pushed up both prices and trading volumes of those shares.
Real estate Sao Mai Group (ASM), Quang Nam Rubber Investment (VHG), PetroVietnam Power Nhon Trach 2 (NT2), sugar producer Thanh Thanh Cong Tay Ninh (SBT) and Viet Nhat Medical Instrument (JVC) were among the top most active stocks with 1.5-4.7 million shares traded on each code. Their prices also soared between 3.4-6.8 percent by the end of the session.
Blue chips were mixed, however. While large-cap stocks such as Vinamilk (VNM), FPT Corp (FPT) and Kinh Do Corp (KDC) and Hoa Sen Group (HSG) extended their losses, some big banks began to recover, including Sacombank (STB), Vietinbank (CTG) and BIDV (BID).
The VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, inched up just 0.08 percent to stand at 651.70 points.
Liquidity continued to slide on July 30 as both market volume and value decreased about 10 percent from the previous session, totalling nearly 103 million shares worth 1.86 trillion VND (85.3 million USD).
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index increased 0.82 percent to close at 85.80 points. The market breadth improved with 107 shares rising, 65 declining and 191 ending flat.
Trading also got worse here with the trading volume and value being down around 20 percent to reach nearly 36 million shares worth 414.3 billion VND (19 million USD).
Speculative stock FIT Investment Co (FIT) remained the most active on the trade of 5.3 million shares, climbing 4.24 percent to settle at 12,300 VND each.
Foreign trades also improved on July 30 as they returned as net buyers in the two markets, picking up combined shares worth nearly 34 billion VND (1.6 million USD).-VNA