The VN-Index saw its second day of strong growth, climbing 1.77 percent on July 3 to close the session at 616.43 points.

However, the rally was again driven mainly by blue chips, particularly bank stocks, while most speculative shares had modest gains or went flat.

"Blue-chips became hot stocks after the foreign ownership limit in some listed companies was lifted," analysts at FPT Securities wrote on the company's website.

On the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, the VN30, which tracks the top 30 shares by market value and liquidity, also rose over 1 percent to end at 639.87 points.

Bank shares continued to lead the trade with more than 2 to 10 million shares changing hands in leading lenders like Military Bank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG) and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV).

Other members of the VN30 including VinGroup (VIC), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Masan Group (MSN), PetroVietnam Drilling and Wells Service (PVD) and Hoa Phat Group (HPG) also increased substantially.

The bright prospects of the market attracted big flows yesterday. Both market volume and value jumped another 20 percent over the previous session, totaling 164.5 million shares worth 2.67 trillion VND (122.5 million USD).

Property developer FLC Group (FLC) maintained the hottest stock with nearly 16 million shares changing hands, but its price stayed flat at 8,600 VND a share.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also gained 1.08 percent to finish at 87.70 points on growing investor confidence.

Bank stocks like Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) and Sai Gon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) continued to prop up the market, with the latter the most active stock on trades of 6 million shares. SHB's price grew 2.4 percent to settle at 8,600 VND each.

Overall liquidity improved as the trading volume soared 30 percent over the previous day to reach nearly 58 million shares while the market value climbed 25 percent to 710.2 billion VND (32.6 million USD).

Many stock analysts showed their doubts on the current rally. First-half macro economic data, the prospects of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and even the raising of the foreign ownership ceiling would play a supporting role in the medium- and long-term.

The foreign sectors lifted their buys in the two markets yesterday, picking combined shares worth 206 billion VND (9.5 million USD).-VNA