Photo shows a Vietjet aircraft. The company shares inched down 0.1 per cent on Friday. - Photo vietjetair.com

HÀ NỘI – Vietnamese shares advanced on Friday despite efforts by foreign investment funds to offload local assets.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange rose 0.44 per cent to close at 956.41 points.

The VN-Index increased by 0.55 per cent over the last two days, but still ended up losing 1 per cent for the week.

More than 243.3 million shares were traded on the southern bourse yesterday, worth VNĐ5.3 trillion (US$228.6 million).

The market sentiment was positive in the last trading day of the week despite pressure from foreign investors’ net selling.

The large-cap VN30-Index finished up 0.71 per cent to stand at 868.37 points with 22 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity gaining.

Among them were Vincom Retail (VRE), Techcombank (TCB), VPBank (VPB), Eximbank (EIB), Military Bank (MBB) and Thành Thành Công – Biên Hòa JSC (SBT).

Vingroup’s real estate retailer Vincom Retail has announced it bought 56.5 million treasury shares for VNĐ2 trillion between November 14 and December 13.

Meanwhile, listed banks continued to rise on expectations they have beaten full-year earnings projections.

EIB, VPB, TCB and MBB were up between 1.4 per cent and 2.1 per cent.

Small-cap stocks also traded in the positive territory. The VNSML-Index gained 0.70 per cent to 797.66 points.

The market was overshadowed by net foreign selling, which was caused by the two exchange-traded funds’ quarterly portfolio reviews.

Foreign investors on Friday net-sold VNĐ217 billion worth of local stocks such as Vinhomes (VHM), Vietjet (VJC) and Masan (MSN).

VHM edged up 0.4 per cent while VJC and MSN dropped 0.1 per cent and 1.1 per cent, respectively.

According to Thành Công Securities Co (TCSC), investors were still cautious during the week and growth depended on company news more than the quality of the market.

Across the southern bourse, 193 stocks increased while 132 stocks declined and 59 stocks were unchanged.

In the remaining seven trading days of 2019, the VN-Index would still swing between 950 and 960 points and companies with good earnings outlooks would lure capital inflow, TCSC said in its daily report.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index went up 0.41 per cent to end at 102.42 points.

The northern market index has increased by total 0.60 per cent in the last two days.

It lost a total 0.50 per cent this week.

More than 35 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ484.3 billion. – VNS