Vinamilk's cattle farm in Tây Ninh Province. Shares of Vinamilk (VNM) rose 1.8 per cent on Friday. — VNA/VNS Photo Lê Đức Hoảnh

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese shares advanced on Friday thanks to global upbeat sentiment as investors cheered the speech by the US’s FED chairman Jerome Powell at a conference overnight.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange gained 0.49 per cent to 878.98 points after having remained sluggish in the previous two trading days.

The VN-Index inched up 0.14 per cent on Thursday.

More than 398.3 million shares were traded on the southern market, worth VNĐ7.7 trillion (US$334.8 million).

Market breadth was positive with 225 gainers and 180 decliners.

Market sentiment improved on Friday following the keynote speech made by US’s Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, indicating the US central bank will keep low rates to possibly achieve higher inflation at the end of the year.

Other markets in the Asia-Pacific region reacted well to the news as it showed risky assets such as stocks could get a boost from more foreign capital based on a cheaper US dollar.

A strong cash flow was poured into multiple blue-chip stocks such as Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BID), Vietinbank (CTG), FPT Corporation (FPT), PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), HDBank (HDB), Masan Group (MSN), Mobile World Group (MWG), Novaland (NVL), Phú Nhuận Jewelry (PNJ), PV Power (POW), Vinhomes (VHM), Vietjet (VJC), Vinamilk (VNM) and VPBank (VPB).

According to Thành Công Securities Company, the market is expected to move forward the resistance areas of 880-900 points in the short-term.

“However, it is likely to continue to struggle with strong differentiation among stocks in the next few sessions,” the company said.

Fourteen out of 25 sectors on the stock market increased such as wholesale, insurance, securities, retail, healthcare, food and beverage and construction.

On the negative side, losers weighed down on the overall market such as real estate, information and technology, energy, banking, agriculture, rubber production, logistics, seafood production and construction materials.

Large-cap stocks performed well with the blue-chip tracker VN30-Index rising 0.91 per cent. Its growth also bolstered market confidence in small-cap and medium-cap stocks.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index added 0.73 per cent to 125.84 points, extending its rally from a seven-day run of total 6.75 per cent.

More than 78.7 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VNĐ1.3 trillion (US$56.5 million).

Foreign investors net sold VNĐ1.2 trillion on HOSE. They were net sellers on the HNX with a value of VNĐ9.79 billion. — VNS