Vietnamese shares’ expansion continued on Thursday with banks taking the lead on expectations of further economic stimulus.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) rose 1.38 per cent to end at 876.46 points, extending its rally to a fifth day with total growth of 4.04 per cent.

Market sentiment was lifted after Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, specialists and officials discussed more stimulus and incentive packages to help propel the economy, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The blue-chip tracker VN30-Index gained 1.49 per cent to 817.08 points and 28 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity finished Thursday on the positive side.

On the derivatives market, the VN30 futures that mature on July 16 were up 1.63 per cent to 815.20 points. Other VN30 futures gained between 21.4 per cent and 26.8 per cent.

Among large-cap gainers were brewer Sabeco (SAB), PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), retailer Phu Nhuan Jewellery JSC (PNJ), tech group FPT (FPT), insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), and PetroVietnam Power Corp (POW).

Nine of the 10 banks listed on the southern bourse advanced with the best performers private equity institutions such as HDBank (HDB), VPBank (VPB), Techcombank (TCB), Sacombank (STB) and TPBank (TPB).

The mid-cap and small-cap trackers were up 1.6 per cent and 1.49 per cent, data on HoSE showed.

On a sector basis, the banking sector index finished Thursday up 1.5 per cent, according to vietstock.vn.

The information-technology, mining-energy, construction, retail, and seafood indices were up between 0.7 per cent and 3.9 per cent.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index increased by 1.57 per cent to close Thursday at 116.16 points.

The northern market index has advanced a total of 4.13 per cent since the beginning of the week.

More than 356.6 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VND5.72 trillion (US$247.7 million).

Foreign investors net-sold a total of VND162.6 billion of local shares on Thursday.

“The market may maintain its recovery trend in the short term toward 883-888 points,” analyst Tran Xuan Bach at Bao Viet Securities Co said in a note.

After beating the resistance zone of 870-875 points, the market would go through a volatile period to retest the upcoming peak, he said.

With listed companies about to release their second-quarter earnings reports, the market would have “a wide divergence among sectors” and the momentum “is still facing difficulties,” he said.

Attention will be driven into the groups of top-performing industries such as banks, securities firms, information-technology companies and steelmakers, Bach added. — VNS