Vietnamese shares remained positive on Friday as investors hunted banking-financial stocks on expectations for good second-quarter earnings reports.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange gained 1.25 per cent to close at 909.72 points. It rose 0.60 per cent on Thursday.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange increased by 2.07 per cent to end at 102.51 points, totalling a two-day rise of 4 per cent.

The VN Index recorded a weekly loss of 0.85 per cent while the HNX Index gained 1.8 per cent.

More than 173.8 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND3.3 trillion (US$146.5 million).

The amount of gaining stocks nearly doubled that of decliners by 298 to 147.

Seventeen of the 20 sectors performed well, led by financial-banking stocks that drove the banking, securities and insurance sector indices up between 1.9 per cent and 3.7 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Bank stocks had declined by average 40-50 per cent in the past three months and this decline had triggered bottom-fishing for this sector, said Nguyen Trung Du, analyst at VNDirect Securities Company.

“Technically, most of the bank stocks have dropped to their supportive ranges that are equivalent to their consolidation levels in previous years, so I don’t think bank stocks will decline further,” Ngo The Hien, senior analyst at Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities Company told tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn.

Moreover, banks were forecast to achieve higher growth rates in 2018, so bank stocks should become an attractive long-term target for investors, the two analysts said.

Eleven of the 13 listed banks saw share prices gain on Friday. The bank stocks that recorded the strongest growth rates included Vietcombank (VCB), VPBank (VPB), Vietinbank (CTG) and Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) jumping at least 3 per cent.

Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), HCM City Securities Corp (HCM), and Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities (SHS) were among the brokerage firms that performed well on Friday, gaining between 3.3 per cent and 5.2 per cent.

However, modest liquidity remained a factor that showed investors were not completely confident in the market’s short-term prospects.

According to BIDV Securities Company, the market did not have a strong recovery as investors were waiting for companies’ second-quarter business results, thus reducing the liquidity.

Foreign investors were still net sellers on Friday, posting VND36.8 billion in net sale value. They net-sold VND62.7 billion on Thursday. — VNS