The VN-Index rose 1.72 percent to close the session at 591.75 points, but the decliners outnumbered the gainers, meaning the rally did not reflect the market's real development.

Blue chips, particularly banks and the companies foreign investors are keen on, led the market upturn on the HCM Stock Exchange. These companies will benefit most from the expansion of foreign ownership signed by the Government late last week.

This long-awaited regulation is expected to spur investment inflows in the market.

The VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, jumped 1.86 percent to end at 620.22 points.

Vietcombank (VCB), BIDV (BID), Sacombank (STB), Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), Vietinbank (CTG), PV Gas (GAS), Hoa Phat Group (HPG), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH) and FPT Corp (FPT) climbed to the highest level of the day with gains of between 1.6 and 5.2 percent.

These were also the stocks hunted most by foreigners on June 29.

The foreign sector was the net buyer here with a net buy value of 314 billion VND (14.4 million USD).

Overall liquidity went down, however, with the market volume declining 20 percent from June 26 level to almost 122 million shares, while value of trades dived 30 percent to reach nearly 2.2 trillion VND (100.9 million USD).

Real estate developer FLC Group (FLC) remained the most heavily-traded stock with a whopping 17 million shares, but its price tumbled 1.2 percent to finish at 8,800 VND a share.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index inched down 0.03 percent to conclude the session at 85.49 as the losers outnumbered the gainers by 116-81 while the other 159 closed unchanged.

The increase of foreign ownership ratio seemed to have little impact on the northern exchange as blue chips like Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), PetroVietnam Technical Services Corp (PVS), Kim Long Securities (KLS) and Saigon-Hanoi Securities (SHS) dragged the bourse down.

Liquidity also tumbled here as both market volume and value fell 20 percent from June 26, totaling 47.6 million shares worth 600.4 billion VND (27.5 million USD).

FIT Investment Co (FIT) was the most active stock here with 6.4 million shares traded, sliding 1.6 percent to close at 13,000 VND (0.60 USD) a share.

Foreign investors were also net buyers here, responsible for a net buy of 29.3 billion VND (1.3 million USD) worth of shares.-VNA