Vietnamese shares gained slightly on Monday morning, driven by speculative stocks in the agriculture, seafood processing and plastic sectors.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange edged up 0.22 per cent to close at 961.75 points. It advanced total 2.57 per cent last week.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange rose 0.12 per cent to end at 106.38 points, expanding from last week’s growth of 0.52 per cent.

More than 105 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND2 trillion (US$90.6 million).

Speculative stocks were the driving factors for the stock market on Monday morning as capital flew into agriculture, seafood and plastic industries.

The three industry indices rose between 0.8 per cent and 2.4 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The stock market also received support from other key sectors such as energy and banking. These two sector indices gained 1.1 per cent and 1.3 per cent.

Large-cap stocks made little contribution to the market’s growth. The blue chip VN30 Index inched up 0.12 per cent to 942.22 points with half of the 30 largest stocks in the basket falling.

Those decliners included property developer Vingroup (VIC), which lost 1.1 per cent after having risen total 4.8 per cent in the previous three sessions.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS