HÀ NỘI — The VN-Index made gains for the fourth straight day on strong capital inflow, but analysts warn of a possible profit-taking correction today.

On the HCM Stock Exchange, the VN-Index rose 0.97 per cent to close Thursday at 1,048.17 points, lifting the four-day gain to 3.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, the HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange ended up 0.75 per cent higher at 122.84 points after a slight decline on Wednesday.

Market breadth was positive when rising shares outnumbered losers by 263-218. Other 244 closed flat.

According to BIDV Securities Co (BSC), strong cash is flowing into small and medium stocks. This pushed up the VN-Index, despite profit-taking selling in large-cap groups.

“Cash flow focusing on the VN30 was trending to spread outside the market," BSC’s analysts wrote in a daily market review. "Stocks supported by positive information are attracting attention.”.

Large caps remained in uptrend but division was taking place when the number of stocks in the VN30 basket (which tracks the top 30 largest shares by market value and liquidity on the HCM Stock Exchange) increased to 11 in contrast to 15 rising stocks.

Banks continued to lead the uptrend with all 11 listed lenders gained value of which the Big Four – Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG), BIDV (BID) and VPBank (VPB) – increased by 0.6-1.6 per cent each.

Smaller banks posted higher growth such as Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Bank (SHB), up 9.2 per cent; newly-listed HDBank (HDB), up 5.5 per cent; and Sacombank (STB), up 4.2 per cent.

Among big losers were Vinamilk (VNM), Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), Mobile World Investment Group (MWG), PetroVietnam Drilling and Wells Service (PVD) and Coteccons Construction (CTD) and Kido Group (KDC) down 0.2-2.7 per cent each.

Liquidity decreased slightly from Wednesday’s figures but remained high with a total of 402.5 million shares worth VNĐ9.13 trillion (US$400.6 million) being traded in the two markets, down 13 per cent in both trading volume and value.

Quang Võ, an analyst at Viet Dragon Securities Co, kept conservative view on the market condition, explaining higher capital inflows means higher market lending. Also, earnings results are released that may trigger ‘buy the rumor and sell the news’, he wrote in a report.

Foreign investors continued to trade heavily on the HCM City’s exchange, picking up net buy value of VNĐ488 billion, while their net buy value in Hà Nội’s market was modest at just VNĐ10.8 billion.

Their buy focused on HDBank and VinGroup with total net buy value in these two shares reaching nearly VNĐ300 billion. — VNS