Stocks continued to climb on both national stock exchanges this morning as investors responded positively to good news about increases in margin ratio and fluctuation rate.

The State Securities Commission announced this morning that the Ministry of Finance would raise the margin ratio (debt to equity ratio) from the current 40-60 to 50-50 on February 1.

In a bid to boost liquidity on the stock market, the intra-day maximum fluctuation rate will increase from 5 per cent to 7 per cent on the HCM City Stock Exchange and from 7 per cent to 10 per cent on the Ha Noi bourse. The new regulation will take effect on January 15.

On the HCM City exchange, the HNX-Index grew 1.4 per cent to 453.42 points by the end of this morning, while the VN30 tracking the top 30 shares on the bourse jumped 1.84 per cent to over 535 points.

Trading was busy with 79.5 million shares, worth VND1.15 trillion (US$55 million), changing hands.

Telecom equipment maker Sacom Investment Development (SAM) is currently the most active codes on trades of more than 4 million shares, edging up 1.32 per cent to VND7,700 a share.

On the Ha Noi bourse, the HNX-Index also rose 0.58 per cent to a close of 60.30 points on a turnover of VND609.5 billion ($29.2 million).
Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) continued to be the most active code here with 15.44 million shares traded. However, the shares slid 2.94 per cent to close at VND6,600 a share.
Trading will resume at 1pm.