Shares extended last week's gains, propped up by strong money flows in banks and securities companies, but foreign traders continued to sell, posing risks to the market in the short term.
On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, the VN-Index closed Monday up 1.03 per cent at 1,370.96 points. The southern market's index increased 1.2 per cent last week.
Liquidity continued to improve with nearly 828 million shares worth VND27.5 trillion (US$1.2 billion) traded, up 12 per cent in volume and 15 per cent in value compared to last week's figures.
In the afternoon trade, money was poured into banking and securities stocks, supporting the market's rally. These two sectors gained an average of 2.1 per cent and 6.5 per cent, respectively, according to data on vietstock.vn.
Six of the top 10 biggest contributors to the VN-Index on Monday were banks. They are Techcombank (TCB), Military Bank (MBB), VPBank (VPB), Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG) and BIDV (BID) with growth of between 1 per cent and 4.7 per cent each.
Securities firms also climbed strongly. The biggest listed brokerage house Saigon Securities Inc (SSI) soared 5.3 per cent; Ho Chi Minh Securities Corp (HCM) also grew 5.3 per cent, and VNDirect Securities (VND) increased 3.3 per cent.
However, slumps of Vinhomes (VHM) and Vingroup (VIC) were the main drag, restraining the market growth.
Vingroup has registered to sell nearly 100.5 million shares of Vinhomes, equivalent to 3 per cent of Vinhomes' charter capital, after VHM hit a record high of VND120,000 ($5.22) a share on Friday, becoming Viet Nam's biggest listed company with a market capitalisation of VND402 trillion ($17.5 billion).
VHM slipped 3.3 per cent and VIC decreased 0.3 per cent on Monday.
The transaction will be carried out between August 19 and September 17 through order matching or put-through transactions. According to Vingroup's statement, the sale is aimed at increasing working capital and investment in subsidiaries.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index increased 1.95 per cent to close the day at 343.53 points with nearly 194 million shares worth VND4.9 trillion traded.
However, contrasting to domestic traders, foreign investors continued to offload Vietnamese shares. They were responsible for net sell value of VND956 billion on the HCM City's bourse, the highest value in the last five sessions. They offloaded shares worth VND40 billion in Ha Noi's market.
Many securities companies are still issuing buy-in recommendations on the prediction the market would continue its rally, but analysts on cafef.vn have warned investors that the stock market has experienced a fairly long bull cycle and they should be wary of the chasing-price strategy. — VNS