A Vietcombank office in northern Thái Nguyên Province. The bank's shares on Friday gained 2.3 per cent to touch a record high of VNĐ82,900 per share. - Photo baothainguyen.vn

HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam’s benchmark VN-Index progressed to 1,000 points on Friday as financial, retail and technology shares were lifted by hopes for future earnings growth.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange gained 0.72 per cent to close at 997.84 points.

The VN-Index has increased by total 1.07 per cent in the last two trading days.

The benchmark added total 0.75 per cent this week.

Financial, technology and retail firms were the top gainers on Friday.

The insurance, banking, securities and retail sector indices were up between 0.9 per cent and 1.3 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The market sentiment improved significantly on Friday and it mostly benefited financial stocks, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in its daily report.

Investors were expecting financial firms to record strong earnings growth in the last quarter of the year, TCSC said.

Among financial firms, Vietcombank shares (VCB) rose 2.3 per cent to VNĐ82,900 per share, hitting a new record high.

Other bank stocks that gained ground included VPBank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB), Eximbank (EIB) and HDBank (HDB).

Brokerage firms with the strongest gains were SSI Securities Corp (SSI), BIDV Securities Corp (BSI) and VNDirect Securities Corp (VND).

Attention was paid to large-cap and mid-cap companies’ shares, boosting the two indices by 0.73 per cent and 0.15 per cent, respectively.

Other large-caps that advanced included food and beverage firm Masan (MSN), brewer Sabeco (SAB), PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), realty firms Vingroup (VIC) and Vinhomes (VHM).

The third-quarter earnings season would start next week and corporate earnings reports were expected to boost the market’s overall performance, MB Securities Co (MBS) said in a note.

Another short-term supportive factor would be the US-China trade talks as the two sides were willing to improve their bilateral trade relations to boost the economies.

The short-term market uptrend was likely to be maintained as institutional investors returned, helping the VN-Index rise for a third straight week, MBS said.

But the VN-Index would face selling pressure at the 1,000-1,005 point range, TCSC forecast.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index ended at 104.77 points, unchanged from Thursday’s finish.

The northern market index rose nearly 1 per cent on Thursday.

The HNX-Index was up total 0.60 per cent this week.

More than 27 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ343 billion. – VNS