Inside a lab of DHG Pharmaceutical JSC (HoSE: DHG). The pharmaceutical sector is among the industries luring investors' attention on expectations they will release good earnings reports in a few weeks. - Photo baodautu.vn

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares picked up on Friday as market sentiment turned positive again during the earnings season, following an official comment from a Fed official.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange rose 0.64 per cent to close at 982.34 points.

It recovered from the 0.66 per cent drop recorded on Thursday.

The VN-Index gained a total of 0.71 per cent this week.

Banks and other large-cap stocks were the main driving force of the market on Friday.

The large-cap VN30-Index surged 1.15 per cent to end the session at 880.79 points.

Twenty-three of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity in the VN30 basket advanced.

Among the best-performers in the VN30 basket were Eximbank (EIB), Vietcombank (VCB), Techcombank (TCB) and Sacombank (STB).

Other gainers included tech group FPT (FPT), food and beverage producer Masan (MSN), DHG Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG), dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), property firm Vincom Retail (VRE) and retailer Mobile World (MWG).

Banking, realty, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, retail, technology and food and beverage were the best-performing sectors on Friday.

Those sector indices gained between 0.9 per cent and 2.1 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Some banks have reported higher earnings reports for the second quarter and the first half of the year such as Vietcombank, Sacombank and Military Bank (MBB).

Therefore, investors were drawn into other banks and firms whose quarterly performance they hope will meet market expectations.

Net foreign buying was also another driver of the market's growth.

Foreign investors net-bought VNĐ146.7 billion on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange, marking the fourth consecutive day they net-purchased local stocks.

The increase of trading liquidity also proved investors were upbeat about the market’s short-term uptrend, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its daily report.

More than 170 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ4 trillion (US$172 million).

The figure consisted of more than 160.6 million shares being sold via order-matching transactions, worth VNĐ3.6 trillion.

Investor confidence was also bolstered after a Fed official late Thursday said central banks should cut rates to stimulate their economies in the context of the global slowdown, MB Securities Co (MBS) said in a note.

Recent developments show the market is quite strong financially and the earnings season is expected to drive growth in the short term as large-cap firms release their reports, MBS said.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index was up 0.31 per cent on Friday to finish at 107.07 points.

The northern market index gained a total of 1.38 per cent in the last four trading days this week for a total weekly gain of 1.14 per cent.

Nearly 28 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ456 billion. – VNS