Blue chips continued to gain ground on July 16, lifting the benchmarkVN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange to a three-week high of496.22 points, up 0.43 percent over July 15’s close.
Dairy giant Vinamilk (VNM) rose 1.5 percent to 139,000 VND (6.62 USD) ashare while PV Gas (GAS) jumped 1.6 percent. Property developer HoangAnh Gia Lai Group (HAG) rose by 2.3 percent and logistic Gemadept (GMD)increased by 2.5 percent.
HAG was the most active code with 3.4 million shares traded at 22,400 VND (1.07 USD) a share.
The VN30 tracking the top 30 shares by market capitalisation and liquidity grew 0.21 percent to stand at 549.75 points.
PetroVietnam General Services Corp (PET) and Pha Lai Thermal Power Co(PPC), which will be added to the VN30 from July 22, also rose fromabout 2 percent each.
Total market volume was littlechanged from the previous session, reaching 42.3 million shares and fundcertificates worth 983 billion VND (46.8 million USD).
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index closed 0.05 percent lowerat 63 points while market volume was still very low at just 19 millionshares valued at 140 billion VND (6.7 million USD).
FLC Group (FLC) remained the most active share on the northern boursewith 3.3 million shares exchanged at 5,700 VND a share.
VNDirect Securities (VND) came second on trades of 2 million shares at9,400 VND each, up 2.2 percent. The firm reported a pre-tax profit of104 billion VND (5 million USD) for the first half of this year,surpassing its yearly target set for the whole year.
Foreign investors were net sellers in HCM City on July 16 buttheir net sell value was small at just 1.51 billion VND (71,900 USD)worth of shares. They were still net buyers on the Hanoi exchange,picking up shares worth 5.55 billion VND (264,300 USD).-VNA