The VN-Index soared by 4.5 percent on January 4, closing the first trading of the new year at 517.05 points, its strongest single-day performance in the past five months.

Trading volume on the HCM Stock Exchange dropped by 36.7 percent compared to last Thursday’s busy year-end session, reaching 43.37 million shares. The value of trades totaled 1.92 trillion VND (102.7 million USD), off 35.8 percent from the previous session.

Sacombank (STB) led the day’s trades, with a volume of 3.9 million shares changing hands, followed closely by Eximbank (EIB), with 3.5 million shares traded.

The southern market welcome a listing of 11.8 million shares of Na Ri Hamico Mineral Co (KSS). On the first day of trading, KSS shares hit their ceiling price to close at 60.000 VND (3.2 USD) on a volume of 52,300.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also jumped by a whopping 6.94 percent to end the day at 179.84 points.

But trading volume fell by 15.32 percent to about 26.9 million shares, worth a combined 879.5 billion VND (47 million USD), a decline of 19.3 percent from the previous session.

PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) surprised as the most-active share on the northern market, with 7.8 million traded.

The market was giving clear signs of a steady uptrend, said analysts of FPT Securities Co in their daily report. The statement on January 4 by State Securities Commission chairman Vu Bang that the commission might authorise faster T+2 clearance of shares this month also helped boost trading on January, they wrote.

Capital flows were likely to pour back into the securities market, following the decision of the Prime Minister last week to shut down gold trading floors, effective March 30.

“The stock market has a chance to draw capital flows from real estate and gold markets in the context of less attractive investment into real estate due to declined sources of financing and the enforcement of new real estate taxes and regulations, as well as the restriction on gold trading,” agreed Tan Viet Securities Co general director Nguyen Van Dung./.