The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange closed at 507.78 points last week, increasing 0.4 percent over the previous week, 2 percent compared to October and 22.74 percent since the beginning of this year.

Trading value and volume averaged around 1.24 trillion VND (58.4 million USD) and 95.4 million shares, declining 22 percent and 20.5 percent respectively.

The most notable session was on November 27, when the VN-Index broke its resistance level of 510 points. "Although the uptrend did not last until the following day, it revealed a better appetite than October," commented FPT Securities Co analyst Nguyen Van Quy.

The HNX-Index reached 65.19 points, rising 5.75 per cent compared to October.

The average value of trades was 299.6 billion VND (14.1 million USD) per session, only 71 percent of the previous week's level.

Selling pressure on penny and speculative stocks increased during the week, as the market saw strong gains during the past month and prices reached attractive levels for sale activities.

Yet despite improved investor sentiment, uncertainties remained about the upcoming portfolio revision of exchange-traded funds. "The changes are hard to predict, and they will surely affect overall trading," Quy said.

However, expectations were set for the first quarter of next year as businesses announced their financial reports. Quy hoped that after the funds' revision and several operation reports were released, blue chips would lead a new rally for 2014. The nation's consumer price index (CPI) rose only 0.34 percent last month.

"This relatively low increase signals that CPI can successfully remain under 8 per cent for the entire year," Quy said. This would mean monetary policies could be loosened in order to boost credit growth to 12 percent.

Foreign investors were net buyers last week. Although this trend declined in mid-week sessions, they returned to buying Friday, keeping investor sentiment stable.

They bought 109.2 billion VND (5.1 million USD) on the HCM City Stock Exchange, favouring blue chips such as private equity firm Masan Group (MSN), steelmaker Hoa Phat (HPG), PetroVietnam Drilling Services (PVD) and logistics company Gemadept (GMD). In Hanoi, their net sales reached 48.8 billion VND (2.3 million USD).-VNA