Vietnam’s benchmark rallied on Wednesday from a low a day earlier to surpass 600, considered earlier by investors tough to reclaim.

The index of 176 companies and four mutual funds traded on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, or VN-Index, gained 15.76 or 2.67 percent to 605.65, the highest peak in 19 months.

Among the index members, gains outnumbered declines by 155 to 10 while 15 remained unchanged. Export, material construction, real estate and transport stocks saw a positive performance.

More active trading was seen after the bell as more than VND4.5 trillion (US$215.6 million) was spent on 85.9 million shares.

Vietnam Securities Investment Fund (VF1) was the most active stock by volume with more than 5.3 million shares traded on the city bourse. The next most active issues were Saigon Commercial Bank or Sacombank (STB) with 4.74 million shares changing hands and HCMC-based Tan Tao Industrial Park (ITA) with 3.72 million shares.

Declines in the southern market were led by pangasius processor Basa Joint Stock Co. (BAS) in the Mekong Delta’s Can Tho City, Seafood Joint Stock Company No. 4 (TS4) in HCMC and the city-based steel maker Vietnam-Italy Joint Stock Co. (VIS).

The northern market also performed well when the HNX-Index hit a high for the year, closing at 205.36 after rising 3.99 percent or 7.87 points. More than 55 million shares worth VND2.47 billion changed hands.

UPCOM-Index also kept up a good pace closing at 68.47, up 0.45 percent or 0.31 points over the previous day. A total of 202,137 shares were traded at VND2.64 billion.

Wall Street struggled on Wednesday (Vietnam time) as weakness in the financial sector and disappointment about Johnson & Johnson’s results halted the Dow’s attempt to reclaim 10,000.

In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.1 percent while France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX both lost 1.2 percent.

Japanese stocks fell, led by financial shares on concern government policies will force banks to book more loan losses. The Nikkei dropped 0.1 percent.