The stock market rose on Friday morning, boosted by gains in bank stocks, but a selling force remained.
The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) rose 3.2 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 1,468.5 points.
The market's breadth was negative, but liquidity was higher compared to the previous session. On the HoSE, investors poured over VND14.4 trillion (US$638.5 million) into the market, equivalent to a trading volume of nearly 547 million shares.
Meanwhile, foreign investors net sold up to VND600 billion on the southern bourse.
The benchmark's bullish trend was thanks to gains in the VN30-Index backed by bank stocks. The VN30-Index, tracking the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, rose 7.66 points, or 0.51 per cent, to 1,500 points.
Of the VN30 basket, 13 stocks rose, while 16 declined and one remained unchanged.
MBBank (MBB) dominated the uptrend this morning, up 5.79 per cent. It was followed by BIDV (BID), Techcombank (TCB) and Vietinbank (CTG), all up at least 2.28 per cent.
Other banks such as Sacombank (STB), Tienphongbank (TPB), HDBank (HDB) and Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB) also climbed more than 2 per cent.
Supporting the index, Development Investment Construction JSC (DIG) again hit the biggest daily gain of 7 per cent in the morning trade.
Selling pressure, however, kept weighing stocks in many sectors including real estate and utilities. Vingroup (VIC) was down 1.47 per cent, and PV Gas (GAS), down nearly 2.5 per cent.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index rebounded after a recent losing streak, up 8.77 points, or 2.13 per cent, to 420.57 points. VNS