An investor watches stock movements at Bao Viet Securities Company (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnamese shares closed on December 26 on a positive note as large-cap stocks were boosted by expectations for better quarterly earnings and rising oil prices.
The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange gained 0.80 percent to close at 965.93 points, extending its rise for a third day with total growth of 2.1 percent.
More than 186 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth 5.25 trillion VND (233.4 million USD).
Market trading condition was balanced with 154 gaining stocks, 132 declining ones and 54 stocks that ended flat.
Large-cap stocks performed well and remained the most important factor that pulled the southern exchange up.
The VN30 Index, that tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation, was up nearly 0.7 percent to 955.73 points with 22 advancing stocks.
On a sector basis, insurance, banking, brokerage, energy, and food and beverage industries had the highest growth rate. The five sector indices advanced between 0.62 percent and 2 percent.
The best-performing stocks in the five sectors included Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD), Sacombank (STB), food and beverage producer Masan (MSN), dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM) and Vietinbank (CTG).
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Other sector-leading shares that also made gains were logistics firm Gemadept (GMD), PetroVietnam Power Nhon Trach 2 (NT2), steel producer Hoa Sen Group (HSG), digital retailer Mobile World (MWG) and FLC Faros Construction (ROS).
Foreign investors on December 26 posted a net buy value of 154.5 billion VND, which was an improvement from a net foreign sell value of 75 billion VND on the previous day.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX Index added 0.73 percent to close at 114.06 points. The northern market index has increased by 0.9 percent in total after the last two sessions.
More than 54.6 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth 813.7 billion VND.
According to KIS Vietnam Securities Corp (KIS), the benchmark VN Index is approaching the expected level of 970 points as rising oil prices and expectations for positive growth of fourth-quarter earnings reports are supporting energy stocks and other leading sectors such as banking-financial and food and beverage industries.
Brent crude on Tuesday traded at 65.10 USD a barrel, marking total growth of 4.3 percent in the past two weeks. It has advanced total 45 percent since the one-year low of 45.82 USD a barrel on June 21.
Investor confidence is expected to strengthen on Wednesday and in the final sessions of 2017, thus improving market liquidity, KIS said in its daily report.
However, investors should be careful with the current upward movement of the stock market as stocks could be hit by short selling, which may hit those that had recently made good gains such as energy shares, KIS warned. -VNA
VNA
