Money continued to pour into the stock market on August 25, pushing up stock indices on both exchanges.

On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the benchmark VN-Index surpassed its March 2008 peak, gaining 5.74 points or 0.93 percent to close at 625.88 points.

The VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, went up 1.04 percent to finish at 661.76 points.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also jumped 1.77 percent to end at 84.81 points.

Liquidity was good, with more than 272.6 million shares worth 4.664 trillionVND (221 million USD) traded on the two exchanges, up 30 percent in volume and 40 percent in value compared with the previous session.

Hot stocks of real estate and oil and gas companies continued to lead trading on the two markets. Four of the top five active codes on the HCM City's bourse were realty companies such as Tan Tao Investment Industry Corp (ITA), FLC Group (FLC), Becamex Infrastructure Development Co (IJC) and Hoang Quan Consulting Trading Service Real Estate Co (HQC) with 7-14 million shares traded on each code.

Trading on the Hanoi exchange was buoyed by oil and gas shares such as PetroVietnam Construction Co (PVX), PetroVietnam Drilling Mud Corp (PVC) and PetroVietnam Technical Services Corp (PVS). PVX was the most active on the northern exchange with 13.9 million shares traded, advancing 4.2 percent to close at 5,000VND per share.

The market was boosted by inflation data, according to analysts at FPT Securities Company. The consumer price index (CPI) rose only 0.22 percent in August, the lowest in nine years, bringing the eight-month growth figure to 1.84 percent.

"Low CPI growth is expected to result in another reduction in interest rates," they wrote in the August 25 report.

Foreign investors on August 25 continued selling for the third day in a row, picking up shares worth a combined 199 billionVND (9.4 million USD) on the two stock exchanges.-VNA