A Vietinbank office. The bank's shares finished Thursday up 2.2 per cent. - Photo vneconomy.vn

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares advanced on Thursday as attention was shifted to banking, securities, technology and retail companies.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange rose 0.20 per cent to close at 997.10 points.

The VN-Index dropped slightly by 0.16 per cent on Wednesday.

Nearly 187 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ3.9 trillion (US$167.7 million).

Large-cap stocks lifted the market as the VN30-Index increased by 0.59 per cent to 918.88 points.

In the VN30 basket, 13 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity made gains while 15 declined.

Among the biggest increasing large-cap stocks were Vietinbank (CTG), Sacombank (STB), Mobile World Investment Corp (MWG), FPT Corp (FPT), SSI Securities Corp (SSI) and HCM City Securities Corp (HCM).

Those stocks were also the driving force for their industries. The banking, securities, technology and retail sector indices were up between 0.9 per cent and 2.4 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Mid-cap and small-cap stock indices VNMID-Index and VNSML-Index made modest gains of 0.09 per cent and 0.25 per cent.

Sài Gòn-Hà Nội Securities Corp (SHS) attributed the market growth to investors’ purchasing when the VN-Index was dragged down to 990-point level during the day.

In addition, investors might want to boost the VN30-Index so that the large-cap index could beat its September futures, which expired on Thursday, to earn some profits, SHS said.

The September VN30 futures, coded VN30F1909, ended its term on September 19 at 917.10 points, slightly lower than VN30-Index close of 918.88 points.

Other VN30 futures such as VN30F1910, VN30F1912 and VN30F2003 – which mature in mid-October 2019, December 2019 and March 2020, respectively – also increased.

However, the three futures’ expected ends were lower than VN30F1909 end by 4.8-7.4 points, indicating investors were not strongly optimistic about the prospects of the market.

Technically, the VN-Index remained in the 995-1,000 point resistance and it was unlikely the VN-Index may beat the 1,000 point level soon, SHS said.

While foreign investors were neutral following the US central bank Federal Reserve’s rate cuts on Wednesday night, the market sentiment would depend on how exchange-traded funds (ETFs) finishes their portfolio reviews on Friday, SHS said.

Therefore, the VN-Index may struggle between 995 and 1,000 points in the last trading day of the week, SHS forecast.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index leaped by 1.71 per cent to end at 104.04 points, totalling a seven-day rally of 4.07 per cent.

More than 27.3 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ381 billion. – VNS