HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares soared on Thursday on strong demand from investors for financial-banking firms and property developers.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 2.40 per cent, or 22.75 points, to end at 971.25 points. It was down 0.39 per cent on Wednesday.

The minor HNX Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange gained 2.88 per cent to close at 114.91 points, recovering from a 1 per cent loss made in the previous session.

More than 224.6 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VNĐ6.57 trillion (US$292.2 million).

Market trading liquidity increased from Wednesday’s level with a 21 per cent growth in volume and a 29 per cent rise in value.

Large-cap stocks received strong purchases from investors, with the blue-chip VN30 Index jumping 3.12 per cent to 947.31 points at the end of the day.

The market breadth was positive as gaining stocks were dominant over losers at a ratio of 334:141. Among total gainers, there were 26 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation in the VN30 basket.

Nineteen of the 20 sectors on the stock market saw share prices rise, with brokerage firms, banks and property developers making the strongest gains. The three sector indices were up between 3.9 per cent and 5 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Rising financial-banking stocks included HDBank (HDB), Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID), Vietinbank (CTG), MBBank (MBB), Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Bank (SHB), Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS) and Saigon Securities Inc (SSI).

Among real estate companies, Vingroup (VIC) jumped 4.5 per cent after the firm targeted a 50 per cent increase in its full-year net profit at the annual shareholders meeting and planned to sell additional shares to raise maximum VNĐ20 trillion in charter capital.

Investor sentiment was also boosted after the State Securities Commission (SSC) on Thursday reported net foreign capital flowing in Việt Nam’s securities market by May 22 had reached nearly $2.35 billion, equal to 80 per cent of the total made in 2017.

Despite the positive report from the SSC, foreign investors remained net sellers on Thursday, posting a net sell value of VNĐ671 billion. On Wednesday, foreign investors net-sold VNĐ393 billion.

According to Bảo Việt Securities Co (BVSC), the facts of improved liquidity and positive market breadth helped strengthen the market’s uptrend and indicated investors’ caution had been erased.

“Investors are showing greater expectation about the market’s recovery in the short term,” BVSC said in its daily report.

However, given a strong rebound of the two stock indices on Thursday, BVSC has warned of the rise in selling pressure on Friday following the “settlement of low-price bottom-fished stocks” and the market may experience strong volatility in the last trading day of the week. — VNS