Viet Nam’s stock market advanced for a third day on the two local exchanges, driven by domestic purchases of local shares on the day foreign funds finished their portfolio review.

The benchmark VN Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 1.4 per cent to close at 675.16 points. The southern market index has gained 3 per cent in the last three sessions.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange added 1.1 per cent to end at 79.71 points, up total 2.3 per cent after three trading days.

Compared to the previous trading week, the VN Index was 1.8 per cent higher while the HNX Index inched up 0.1 per cent.

More than 210.5 million shares were exchanged on the two local bourses, worth VND3.73 trillion (US$165.7 million).

Market trading liquidity increased from Thursday’s numbers with an increase of around 24 per cent in both trading volume and value.

Sacombank (STB) was the most active stock with nearly 21 million of its shares being traded. STB closed up 2.5 per cent.

Other banks such as Sai Gon-Ha Noi Bank (SHB), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) and Eximbank (EIB) also made good gains.

The brokerage sector was the strongest one yesterday, lifted by HCM City Securities Corp (HCM), Sai Gon Securities Inc (SSI), VNDirect Securities Corp (VND) and Bao Viet Securities Corp (BVS).

HCM gained 1.5 per cent, SSI was up 1.1 per cent, VND jumped 3 per cent and BVS increased by 1.2 per cent.

Strong purchases by domestic investors were the major factor that lifted the stock market after they managed to absorb the shares sold by foreign investors when exchange-traded funds (ETFs) completed reviewing their portfolios for this year. Foreign investors yesterday made a net sell value of nearly VND280 billion.

The most important factor for strong purchasing from domestic investors was their high confidence after the US central bank on late Wednesday decided to raise its short-term rate by a quarter percentage point to 0.5 per cent, marking the first rate hike since December 2015.

“The Fed’s decision had little impact on the stock market,” Bao Viet Securities Corp (BVSC) said in a note. “Global markets, before and after the Fed meeting, have had little changed, proving that investors are quite calm on the decision.”

In Viet Nam’s stock market, investors have priced in the negative impact of the US rate hike on the exchange between the Vietnamese dong and the dollar, BVSC said.

“The rate hike has cleared investors’ mind of a worry and the movement of the local stock market in the next three months will depend on the country’s macro-economic indicators such as GDP growth, inflation, forex rates and companies’ fourth-quarter performances.” — VNS