Shares extended gains on Friday morning, retracing some of early week’s losses as large-caps gained ground. — Photo cafef.vn

Shares extended gains on Friday morning, retracing some of early week’s losses as large-caps gained ground.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange increased 1.09 per cent to close the morning trade at 701.78 points.

The southern market index had increased 0.57 per cent to close Thursday at 694.21 points.

A total of 119.4 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VNĐ1.9 trillion (US$81.3 million).

Nine-teen of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity in the VN30 basket dropped to weigh on the market. Ten of them moved up.

After the first few minutes of decline, investors' sentiment gradually stabilised and bottom-fishing demand appeared in many large-cap stocks. Blue-chips like Vietinbank (CTG), Hậu Giang Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company (DHG), PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), Masan Group (MSN), Vietcombank (VCB), Vingroup (VIC), Vinamilk (VNM) and PVPower (POW) all gained and helped indices go up.

On the down side, VPBank (VPB), Vietjet (VJC), Vincom Retail (VRE), FPT Corporation (FPT) and some retail stocks such as Mobile World Group (MWG), Phu Nhuan Jewellery (PNJ) were among the market’s decliners.

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index rose 0.29 per cent to close Friday morning at 98.09 points.

The northern market had risen 3.24 per cent to close Thursday at 100.09 points.

More than 26.6 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VNĐ236 billion.

The afternoon trading session begins at 1pm. — VNS