HÀ NỘI – Large-cap companies continued to drive shares on the HCM Stock Exchange up yesterday, but analysts warned of market volatility over investor worries about the market’s dependence on blue chips.

The benchmark VN Index gained 1.28 per cent yesterday – the highest growth rate since May 22 – to close at 843.73 points.

The VN Index had fallen 1.14 per cent on Thursday but still made a weekly gain of nearly 0.4 per cent.

More than 250.8 million shares worth VNĐ4.85 trillion (US$215.5 million) were traded on both bourses, yesterday, a slight increase in both trading volume and value over Thursday.

The market breadth improved, but there was no big difference between the number of gaining and declining stocks (148 to 116).

Large-cap stocks continued to cushion both local exchanges. The VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 biggest shares by market capitalisation and trading liquidity, gained 1.5 per cent.

Among large-cap stocks that advanced, the strongest gainers were property developers, construction companies, energy firms and financial businesses, with stocks like FLC Faros Construction (ROS), Kinh Bắc City Development Holding Corp (KBC), Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID), Vietcombank (VCB), VPBank (VPB) and PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD).

Bảo Việt Securities Co analyst Trần Xuân Bách said in the company’s daily report that the VN Index has recouped all losses made in the previous session and maintained its growth for the two consecutive weeks.

The strong rebound of the index could improve investor confidence in the near future, given the increase in gaining stocks after they had fallen sharply in recent sessions, he said.

However, there is no evidence the stock market would move up soundly, as it still depended a lot on the strength of large-cap stocks, Bách warned, adding that the divergence between large-cap stocks and others would make investors more cautious.

Also yesterday, the HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange rose 0.91 per cent to end at 104.36 points, recovering from a three-day loss of 2.8 per cent.

The northern market index dropped total 1.9 per cent this week.

More than 47.5 million shares were exchanged on the northern market, worth VNĐ476.7 billion.

The northern market index was also driven up by large-cap shares such as Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Bảo Việt Securities (BVS), PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS) and Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities Co (SHS). – VNS