HÀ NỘI — Money shifted back to financial stocks on Thursday which helped the market extend gains on the HCM Stock Exchange.

The benchmark VN-Index perked up 0.53 per cent to close at 782.76 points. It rose 0.6 per cent on Wednesday.

Banks were the biggest gainers as five of seven listed lenders on the southern bourse gained value, including the ‘big four’ – Vietcombank, Vietinbank, Military Bank and BIDV, of which the latter hit the maximum daily rise of 7 per cent, settling at VNĐ20,700 (US$0.91) a share.

Apart from banks, big-name insurers and financial firms such as Bảo Việt Holdings, Saigon Securities Inc, HCM Securities Corp and Masan Group also advanced.

In the VN30 basket (which tracks the top 30 largest shares by market value and liquidity on the HCM Stock Exchange), 20 stocks gained while eight dropped.

Investors were upbeat on socio-economic data in the first eight months, Trần Đức Anh, a stock analyst at Bảo Việt Securities Co (BVSC) wrote in a note.

Chairman of the Office of the Government Mai Tiến Dũng said at a regular press meeting on Wednesday that the country’s GDP growth is likely to hit the target of 6.7 per cent by year-end after reviewing the socio-economic statistics in August.

Major indicators including inflation, credit growth, total retail sales of goods and services, foreign direct investment, industrial production and number of newly-established enterprises were positive with a monthly uptrend.

“Despite encouraging results in the first eight months, the target of 6.7 per cent remains challenging,” Anh said and maintained the previous forecast for GDP growth this year at 6.3-6.5 per cent, given the first half growth of only 5.73 per cent.

He said the market saw a wide divergence with the VN-Index supported by positive movement of large-cap stocks, especially bank stocks.

“The divergence will still be seen in the coming sessions and cash flows will continue to run into stocks having supportive information and good business performance such as banks, steelmakers and real estate companies,” Anh said.

Contrary to big stocks, speculative shares were under heavy selling pressure and popular speculative stocks such as FLC Group, HAI Agrochem, AMD Group Mining and Investment, and FIT Group all slumped.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index edged up 0.53 per cent to end at 103.88 points.

Liquidity increased on Thursday with a total of 279.5 million shares worth a combined VNĐ5.1 trillion ($224.1 million) being traded on the two markets, up nearly 15 per cent in volume and 24.4 per cent in value compared to Wednesday’s figures. — VNS