A petrol station of Việt Nam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex or PLX) in Hà Nội. PLX rose 4.8 per cent on Thursday. Photo petrolimex.com.vn

HÀ NỘI — Shares gained for a third day in a row on Thursday thanks to the growth of energy stocks.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) gained 1 per cent to close at 983.26 points.

The index had climbed 3.4 per cent in the last three sessions.

More than 290 million shares were traded on the southern exchange on Thursday, worth VNĐ10.7 trillion (US$250 million).

Market breadth was positive with 254 gainers and 176 decliners.

The VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and liquidity on HoSE, rose 0.77 per cent to end Thursday at 944.92 points.

Investment cash flow continued to spread into the market, said BIDV Securities Co.

“The market liquidity maintained an uptrend, the positive market amplitude and widening market breadth reflected the excited investors’ trading sentiment,” the company said.

“Foreign investors maintained their net buying trend and focused on large-cap stocks such as Vietjet (VJC), Vinamilk (VNM) and Vietcombank (VCB).”

Foreign investors net bought VNĐ399.28 billion on HOSE. They were net sellers on the HNX with the value of VNĐ19.75 billion.

Oil stocks gained ground thanks to the injection of cash flow, including PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), Việt Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD), PetroVietnam Power Corp (POW), and PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS).

Large-caps also performed well with Sabeco (SAB) increasing by 5.5 per cent to VNĐ193,700 per share, Vietcombank (VCB), rising by 3 per cent to VNĐ90,200 per share, insurer Bảo Việt Holdings (BVH), gaining by 2.9 per cent to VNĐ56,900 per share and VPBank (VPB), rising by 2.4 per cent to VNĐ25,500 per share.

Across the stock market, 19 out of 25 sectors indices gained ground, including energy, construction materials, plastics and chemical production, wholesale, insurance, securities, healthcare, food and beverage, real estate, banking and insurance.

On the other side, agriculture, seafood processing, and construction lost ground.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index gained 0.04 per cent to 146.85 points.

It had increased 0.15 per cent to close Wednesday at 146.8 points.

More than 65.9 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VNĐ1.1 trillion. — VNS