Vinamilk's cattle farm in Tây Ninh Province. The company’s shares were among those that rose on Monday as the market gave a thumbs-up to Việt Nam’s free trade deal with the EU. — VNA/VNS Photo Lê Đức Hoảnh

HÀ NỘI — The markets continued to gain on Monday as investors were upbeat over the ratification of a Europe-Việt Nam trade deal.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange closed 1.55 per cent up at 899.92 points.

The VN-Index had gained a total of 2.51 per cent last week.

The HNX-Index on the Hà Nội Stock Exchange rose 1.71 per cent to finish the day at 120.10 to follow on the heel of a 7.53 per cent gain last week.

Nearly 682 million shares were traded on the two exchanges for VNĐ9.51 trillion (US$409 million). This included a record VNĐ7.22 trillion worth of order matching on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange.

The market sentiment was supported by an uptrend in global stocks following the US employment report last weekend, MB Securities (MBS) said in its daily report.

Investors cheered the approval of the Europe-Việt Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and the Europe-Việt Nam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA), MBS said.

The agreements were passed by the National Assembly in the morning, which boosted almost all sectoral indices.

The industries that are expected to benefit the most from the agreements include retail, banking, securities, food and beverages, seafood, and real estate.

The sectoral indices were up 0.9-5.9 per cent, according to vietstock.vn, with the seafood sector accounting for the latter number.

The trade deals are expected to give Vietnamese companies better access to the affluent European markets.

Besides, Việt Nam also expects to attract investment from Europe.

All leading companies in each sector gained, taking the large-, mid- and small-cap tracker indices up by 1.5-2 per cent.

The large-cap VN30 index was up 1.5 per cent as 27 of the 30 largest stocks by market value gained and only three declined.

The gainers included sugar firm Thành Thành Công-Biên Hòa (SBT), retailer Mobile World Investment (MWG), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), and PetroVietnam Gas (GAS).

“High trading liquidity has been maintained for the past few days, proving the market absorption is good,” MBS said.

“That indicates investors are highly confident about the market’s prolonged uptrend.” — VNS