Vietnamese shares increased slightly on Monday morning with modest trading liquidity in the year’s last trading week. — Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

Vietnamese shares gained slightly on Monday morning, driven by food and beverage, seafood processing and some large-cap companies.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange edged up 0.26 per cent to close at 914.63 points.

The southern market fell a total 4.18 per cent after all five trading days of last week.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange dropped 0.33 per cent to end at 104.11 points.

The northern market index lost total 2.07 per cent last week.

More than 99 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND1.87 trillion (US$82 million).

Food and beverage and seafood processing companies were the driving factors of the stock market in the morning session.

The two industry indices gained 2.3 per cent and 1.1 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), Masan (MSN) and Vinh Hoan Corp (VHC) were among the firms that boosted the two sectors.

The three stocks gained between 2.5 per cent and 2.9 per cent.

Large-cap companies also performed well with the blue chip VN30 Index rising 0.52 per cent to 877.64 points.

Thirteen of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation in the VN30 basket advanced, including Sacombank (STB), property developer Novaland (NVL) and steelmaker Hoa Phat (HPG).

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS