Positive movements of global markets helped boost morale in Vietnamese shares on Friday and lift the benchmark VN-Index up to a two-week high.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange rose 1.86 per cent to close at 924.86 points, recovering from a 0.74 per cent loss made on Thursday.

The southern market index also marked a strong rebound on Wednesday, and the two strongly-advancing sessions this week helped the benchmark finish up total 2.67 per cent week-on-week.

The minor HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange gained 2.30 per cent to end at 105.75 points after having fallen 1.89 per cent on Thursday.

The northern market index has increased by total 3.89 per cent this week.

The market breadth was positive as the number of gaining stocks doubled that of declining ones by 307 to 150 across the two exchanges while 96 declined.

According to BIDV Securities JSC (BSC), positive movements from global and regional stock markets supported the benchmark VN-Index.

On Friday, Asian stocks moved into positive territory on expectations the US and China would in November reach a mutual agreement to ease existing trade tension, thus lightening worries over the prospects for the global economy.

“Optimistic sentiment is gradually returning to help the market rebound strongly,” BSC wrote in its daily report.

Improved sentiment helped lift the market trading volume by 18.5 per cent session-on-session to nearly 260.7 million shares traded on the two exchanges, but trading value fell 27.6 per cent to VND4.92 trillion (US$218.7 million).

The large-cap VN30 Index, the main driving factor of the stock market, added 1.77 per cent to end Friday at 903.43 points.

Of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation in the VN30 basket, 25 advanced including dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), Petrolimex (PLX), consumer firm Masan (MSN), Saigon Securities Inc (SSI) and Coteccons Construction Corp (CTD).

Good investor confidence also spread to other groups of stocks, lifting 18 of total 20 sectors on the market, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The strongest gaining sectors included banking, securities, food and beverage, agriculture and seafood processing whose sector indices jumped at least 3 per cent, according to vietstock.vn.

Each company also had its own story to support the market.

Shares of the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BID) surged 6.9 per cent, hitting its daily highest price of VND32,450 ($1.44) per share.

BIDV shares have shot up 17.6 per cent in the last three sessions following its Wednesday announcement that the bank is planning to issue more than 603.3 million shares to South Korea’s KEB Hana Bank to raise its charter capital to VND40.22 trillion.

Shares of high-end property developer Vinhomes (VHM) jumped 4.4 per cent to VND72,000 per share after the company announced its nine-month net profit was nearly VND11.9 trillion, five-fold last year’s figure.

VHM shares have gained 16.5 per cent in the last four trading sessions. — VNS