Shares had a good start on Monday morning, boosted by gains in securities stocks.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange gained 0.55 per cent to end morning session at 1,073.34 points.

Nearly 454.6 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND8.9 trillion (US$382.9 million).

The large-cap tracker VN30-Index was up 0.69 per cent to 1,043.81 points.

Fif-teen of the 30 large-cap stocks in the VN30 basket increased while seven declined.

Securities stocks maintained their gains until the end of the morning session, strongly supporting the indices. The best performers in the group included SSI Securities Incorporation (SSI), Viet Capital Securities Joint Stock Company (VCI), VNDirect Securities (VND).

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index rose 0.51 per cent to 177.93 points.

More than 85.8 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VNĐ1.1 trillion.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS