Sabeco's brewery in Củ Chi District, HCM City. The firm's shares added 1.2 per cent following reported increases in third-quarter and nine-month post-tax profits. - Photo tienphong.vn

HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam’s benchmark VN-Index rose for a fourth straight day to near 1,000 points, driven by Vietcombank and some large-cap firms’ Q3 earnings reports.
The VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange advanced 0.30 per cent to close Friday at 996.57 points, totalling a four-day gain of 1.32 per cent.
The benchmark index was up total 0.74 per cent this week.
Friday’s gain also marked the sixth time the VN-Index has approached the 1,000 points since July 29.
Lifting the benchmark index on Friday were shares of listed banks and brewery firm Sabeco.
The banking sector index increased by 0.9 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.
Vietcombank shares (VBC) again set up its new all-time peak, rising 1.3 per cent to end at VNĐ88,000 per share.
MBBank shares (MBB) rose by 1.1 per cent. The bank has announced its post-tax profit gained 26 per cent year on year in the third quarter and 28 per cent yearly in the nine-month period.
Shares of Vietinbank (CTG) and VPBank (VPB) also moved higher.
Another large-cap – brewer Sabeco (SAB) – also progressed following its earnings report for the third quarter.
In the July-September period, Sabeco recorded a year-on-year increase of 41 per cent in its post-tax profit. After nine months, the post-tax profit rose nearly a quarter from last year’s number.
The strong performance of Sabeco, Vietcombank, Vietinbank and MBBank also spurred other blue chips to move forward.
The large-cap VN30-Index edged up 0.19 per cent to stand at 927.05 points at the end of the day.
Fourteen of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity increased while 12 declined.
Meanwhile, mid-cap and small-cap stocks lost steam, pulling the mid-cap and small-cap indices down 0.27 per cent and 0.12 per cent, data on HoSE showed.
Large-caps continued being the main driving factor for the stock market on Friday but market sentiment remained weak, proved by low trading liquidity, Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC) said in a note.
Nearly 173.5 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ3.72 trillion (US$160 million) – which was slightly higher than Thursday’s figures but still lower than the 20-day average.
MB Securities Co (MBS) said that improved liquidity is a must to drive the benchmark index over the 1,000-point level.
On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index inched up 0.07 per cent to close at 104.71 points.
The northern market index was up 0.49 per cent on Thursday.
The HNX-Index dropped total 0.73 per cent this week.
Nearly 27 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VNĐ312 billion. – VNS