HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares ended Thursday on a positive note with extended growth among commercial banks, but stronger selling hindered the market’s short-term prospects.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange inched up 0.30 per cent to close at 1,008.44 points.

The southern market index has increased by 2.41 per cent in the past three days.

More than 224.5 million shares were traded on the southern exchange, worth VNĐ4.82 trillion (US$207 million).

Bank stocks extended growth to drive the stock market up with the sector index rising 1.4 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Among local banks that advanced on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange were Vietcombank (VCB), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and Sacombank (STB).

The three bank stocks rose between 1.6 per cent and 2.8 per cent on Thursday. They respectively have gained 6.9 per cent, 7.5 per cent and 3.6 per cent in the last three trading days.

Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam will organise its annual shareholder meeting on April 26 in which the management board will deliver 2019 business plans to shareholders.

Positive movement of the banking sector influenced other market-driving industries such as real estate, brokerage, construction, logistics, pharmaceuticals and healthcare.

On the opposite side, petroleum, retail, rubber and plastics, consumer staple and seafood stocks were hit by short-term selling pressure as investors tried to take profits from their recent up-turns.

According to Thành Công Securities JSC (TCSC), bank stocks played the main role to help the stock market maintain its uptrend on Thursday.

However, the rise of profit-taking pressure on some specific groups of stocks (as mentioned above) resulted in volatility, the company said.

“It needs more time to settle at the current level in order to give clearer signals about the future.”

“Today’s liquidity slightly declined (from Wednesday) so investors were too cautious to buy in to high-price stocks while the rest of them were willing to hold on to their assets to take advantage of the market rally,” Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities (SHS) said in its daily report.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX Index gained 0.18 per cent to end at 110.02 points.

The northern market index has totalled a four-day rally of 1.66 per cent.

More than 42.3 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ481.6 billion. – VNS