National stocks witnessed positive gains on August 14, with the VN-Index on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange adding 0.41 percent to reach 605.25 points.

Trading value grew around 14 percent to 2.1 trillion VND (99 million USD) on a volume of 112 million shares.

The VN30 Index, tracking the bourse's 30 leading shares, closed the session at 646.42 points, up 0.2 percent with 17 advancers and 10 decliners.

Top gainers were Da Nang Rubber (DRC), commercial baker Kinh Do (KDC), Vinh Son – Song Hinh Hydropower (VSH) and dairy company Vinamilk (VNM). VSH jumped 3.4 percent, after its revenue in the second quarter doubled to 92 billion VND (4.3 million USD) as compared to the same period last year.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also put on 0.15 percent to reach 81.95 points. Blue chips in the northern market lifted the HNX30 Index 0.2 percent higher to 165.76 points.

As more than 59.2 million shares were traded, trading value reached 718 billion VND (33.86 million USD).

Securities shares that were favoured during the session included Saigon Securities (SSI), VNDirect (VND) and Bao Viet Securities (BVS) along with BIDV Securities (BSI), HCM City Securities (HCM) and Kim Long (KLS). Sai Gon-Hanoi Securities (SHS) and Vietinbank Securities (CTS) also found favour.

Foreign investors bought and sold 13.6 million shares on both exchanges, increasing nearly 24 percent over August 13 session. They were net sellers for the eighth successive session on the HCM City’s stock exchange with a net value of 109.8 billion VND (5.2 million USD) while they ended up as net buyers in Hanoi with 11.3 billion VND (533,000 USD).

The sale by foreign investors was of some specific stocks rather than the entire market. Andy Ho, CEO of Vina Capital told Dau Tu Chung Khoan (Securities Investment) that he believed that if foreign investors sell in August, it was purely a short-term profit-making activity.-VNA