Investors check stock transactions on the ACB floor in Hanoi (Photo: VNA) Vietnamese shares rose on August 18, breaking a five-day losing streak, on gains in banks and insurers.
The VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose by 1.2 percent to close at 580.22 points.
Insurance firms and banks recorded the strongest gains among the 23 sectors in the market.
The index's nine banks rose an average of 2.1 percent, led by BIDV (BID - up 4.8 percent) and Vietcombank (VCB - up 3.7 percent). Both banks reported sharp jumps last week in quarterly profit from a year earlier.
Bucking the trend was Eximbank (EIB), which fell 3.2 percent after a 7 percent loss on August 17. EIB topped market volume with 7.3 million shares traded. The bank reported last week that its pre-tax profit fell 87 percent in the second quarter to 29 billion VND (1.3 million USD) from the same period a year ago.
Insurance stocks rose an average of 4.2 percent with Bao Viet Holdings (BVH) gaining 5.3 percent, followed by BIDV Insurance Corporation (BIC) up 3.3 percent and Bao Minh Insurance Corportion (BMI) adding 3.8 percent.
Construction firm HCM City Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Company (CII) jumped 7 percent, the most the exchange will allow in a day, after local media said some securities firms expect the VNM ETF Investment Fund would select CII into the fund's investment list in the third quarter of this year.
Trading volume fell to 1.76 trillion VND (79.6 million USD), down 8.2 percent from August 17.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX Index gained 0.8 percent to close at 79.60 points. The northern market traded more than 40 million shares, worth 478 billion VND (21.6 million USD) – up 12.2 percent from August 17.
Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) topped the market trading with more than 4 million shares traded and gained 2.8 percent.-VNA
