Vietnam’s stocks up on investor confidence hinh anh 1Illustrative image (Source: VNA)
 
Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnamese shares advanced on January 15 as large-cap firms were boosted by positive investor confidence that was looking for opportunities in the earnings season.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 1.27 percent to close at 1,063.47 points. It gained total 3.7 percent last week.

The minor HNX-Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange added 1.06 percent to end at 122.03 points after posting a weekly growth of 1.5 percent at the end of January 12.

More than 359.8 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth 8.66 trillion VND (385.2 million USD).

These trading figures were down 11.3 percent in volume and 6.5 percent in value compared to the previous week’s average daily numbers.

Across the two local exchanges, there were 248 gaining stocks, 232 declining ones and 115 stocks ending flat.

Large-cap stocks performed well as the VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest shares by market capitalisation, advanced 1.21 percent to 1,508.60 points with two-thirds of the 30 stocks advancing.

Gainers in the VN30 basket included insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Vietcombank (VCB), property developer Novaland (NVL), and steel producers Hoa Sen (HSG) and Hoa Phat (HPG). Those stocks jumped at least 3 percent each.

Among other large-caps that recorded strong growth were petrol dealer Petrolimex (PLX) and budget carrier Vietjet (VJC) after the two stocks were about to be included into the VN30 basket by the HCM Stock Exchange from January 22 to July 20, 2018.

The rubber industry also posted strong growth on Monday as the industry index surged 6.6 percent, data on vietstock.vn showed. The industry was led by Dong Phu Rubber JSC (DPR) and Phuoc Hoa Rubber JSC (PHR).

According to analysts, the market sentiment will be still dominated by investors’ expectations for good quarterly and yearly corporate earnings reports as well as firms’ forecasts for 2018.

Ngo Quoc Hung, analyst at Vietinbank Securities Company told online newspaper VnEconomy that such expectations would keep driving the market up in the short-term.

Corporate earnings reports for the past quarter and the whole year were forecast to be higher than expected, Hung said, adding that earnings reports and business information were becoming more transparent to investors and investors had reacted positively to the market information.

Among the companies mentioned above, Vietinbank has estimated its pre-tax profit in 2017 would reach 9.2 trillion VND, while Dong Phu Rubber JSC has reported its combined profit for the first 11 months of 2017 reached 244 billion VND, twice the 2016 number.

However, Saigon-Hanoi Securities Company said in its market daily report that selling pressure may get stronger in the next few sessions as the market trading condition was not quite positive enough given that there were many stocks suffering on the two local exchanges.

The brokerage firm forecast the VN-Index would encounter strong profit-taking pressure when it approached the range of 1,060-1,070 points on January 16. - VNA
VNA