HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares soared in the first trading session of the week as investor confidence remained strong on expectations for good earnings reports.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 2.39 per cent to close at 1,087.42 points. It gained a total of 1.1 per cent last week.

The minor HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange added 1.22 per cent to end at 123.88 points after posting weekly growth of 1.6 per cent at the end of Friday.

More than 350.9 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth nearly VNĐ8.9 trillion (US$395 million).

These trading figures were down 9.4 per cent in volume and 6 per cent in value compared to the previous week’s average daily numbers.

Across the two local exchanges, there were 251 gaining stocks, 250 declining ones and 101 stocks ending flat.

Large-cap stocks performed well: the VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest shares by market capitalisation, surged 2.78 per cent to 1,082.71 points with 22 stocks advancing.

Gainers in the VN30 basket included broker Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), Vietcombank (VCB), PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services Co (PVD) and Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH). Those stocks jumped at least 3.8 per cent each.

Among other large-caps that recorded strong growth were PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), Masan Group (MSN) and dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM).

The banking industry also posted strong growth on Monday as the industry index gained 2.9 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The industry was led by Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID) and VPBank (VPB), which were up 5.8 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively.

The brokerage sector also had a positive trading day, driven by MB Securities Co (MBS), HCM City Securities Corporation (HCM), VNDirect Securities Co (VND) and Sài Gòn Securities Inc (SSI).

MBS jumped 2 per cent, HCM gained 5.2 per cent, VND added 3.2 per cent, SHS advanced 6 per cent and SSI moved up 5.2 per cent.

Laggards were Vincom Retail Joint Stock Company (VRE) (2.5 per cent), Sài Gòn Thương Tín Commercial Joint Stock Bank (STB) (2.3 per cent), KIDO Group (KDC) (3.6 per cent), Coteccons Construction Joint Stock Company (CTD) (2.4 per cent) and Thành Thành Công-Biên Hòa Joint Stock Company (SBT) (2.6 per cent).

Due to a network crash at the end of the session, the Viễn Thông A JSC (ATC) sell orders were not recorded, according to BIDV Securities Company (BSC).

The shutdown of the southern stock exchange could have made the index rise above its actual level on Monday, and this phenomenon also stimulated all future contracts to rally significantly following the peak of the VN30 Index, BSC said in its daily report.

Therefore, the market could be hit by investors’ short selling on Tuesday, BSC forecast.

“Investors are advised to continue short-term trading activities, preferably in short positions for short- and medium-term contracts as the index is expected to be adjusted for a logical level in Tuesday’s session.” — VNS