Vietnamese shares advanced on Monday morning, driven by banks and energy firms amid low trading liquidity.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange was up 0.55 per cent to close at 907.23 points.

The southern market index recorded a weekly loss of 0.05 per cent last week.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange rose 0.75 per cent to end at 102.32 points.

The HNX Index lost 0.3 per cent in the previous trading week.

Liquidity remained low in the pre-Tet period with nearly 112 million shares being traded on the two exchanges, worth VND1.94 trillion (US$83.4 million).

Bank and petroleum stocks were the driving force of the market in the morning session.

The two industry indices grew by 2.3 per cent and 1.5 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Listed commercial banks have reported higher-than-forecast profits for 2018 while petroleum companies were supported by the increases of oil prices.

In the banking sector, Military Bank (MBB), Vietinbank (CTG), VPBank (VPB) and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) were among the best-performing stocks.

Petroleum stocks such as PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS) and PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD) gained strongly.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. – VNS