A Vietcombank teller. The bank shares took turn to drive the VN-Index up as they soared 5.6 per cent on Friday. - Photo tinnhanchungkhoan.vn

HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam’s benchmark VN-Index rallied for a fourth straight day with growth momentum provided by the banking sector.

The VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange was up 0.48 per cent to close at 978.96 points.

The benchmark index has gained a total of 1.36 per cent in the last four trading days.

The rally also helped the index total a weekly growth of 1.07 per cent.

More than 164 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ3.3 trillion (US$141.8 million).

Banking was the most active and best-performing sector on Friday as the index rose 2.2 per cent, statistics on vietstock.vn showed.

Three of the 10 most-active stocks on the southern market were banks – Vietinbank (CTG), Military Bank (MBB) and Sacombank (STB).

A total of 17.28 million shares in the three banks were traded.

But MBB ended flat while CTG and STB advanced 0.1 per cent and 1.9 per cent, respectively.

The banking sector was mostly lifted by Vietcombank (VCB), which jumped 5.6 per cent.

On the opposite side, Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) suffered from profit-taking activity, falling 0.9 per cent on Friday.

Other sectors that also saw shares increase were retail, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, as well as building contractors.

Meanwhile, technology, food and beverage, rubber, aquaculture, and building material production weighed down the market.

The market breadth continued being negative with 162 declining stocks and 148 gainers.

Large-cap VN30-Index advanced 0.32 per cent while mid-cap VNMID-Index and small-cap VNSML-Index were down 0.25 per cent and 0.35 per cent.

According to VNDirect Securities, the market’s short-term outlook remains positive after the VN-Index successfully overcame 970-point level.

But it should be noticed the market was boosted Friday mostly by the strong performance of Vietcombank shares (VCB) while other large-cap stocks were divided, VNDirect said in its daily report.

It proved investors were still unwilling to jump into the market at the moment and it made some groups of stocks halt their growth, the brokerage firm said.

That meant the stock market may fall and settle at the 970 points when the local economy was in short of good news, VNDirect added.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index lost 0.42 per cent to close at 103.88 points.

The northern market index retreated after gaining 1.09 per cent on Thursday.

More than 25 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ278.4 billion. – VNS