HÀ NỘI — Shares continued to gain on Thursday morning, fueled by the growth of several major large caps and climbing oil stocks.

The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange rose 0.40 per cent to close at 977.56 points.

More than 71.8 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ1.4 trillion (US$60 million).

It had closed Wednesday up 0.47 per cent at 973.65 points.

Key sectors like securities, insurance, mining, banking and construction were the biggest gainers.

Large-cap stocks continued to their strong performance. Banking stocks such as Vietinbank (CTG), Asina Commercial Bank (ACB), Bank for Investment and Development (BID), Vietcombank (VCB) and Techcombank (TCB) all rose.

Oil and gas stocks such as PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS), PetroVietnam Power Corporation (POW), Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (BSR), Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX) and PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD) also increased.

On the other side, some other blue-chip stocks like Vinhomes (VHM), Vingroup (VIC), Vietjet Air (VJC) slumped, limiting the market's overall gains considerably.

Large-cap stocks performed well as the VN30-Index, tracking the 30 largest stocks by market value and trading liquidity, climbed 0.37 per cent to 879.34 points.

Twenty-one of the stocks in the VN30 basket increased while only seven decreased.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index gained 0.75 per cent to end at 105.93 points.

More than 12.8 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VND210 billion.

The northern market index inched up 0.04 per cent the previous day to end at 105.14 points.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS