The VN-Index soared by 4.5 percent on Monday, closing the first trading day of the new year at 517.05 points, its strongest single-day performance in the past five months.
Trading volume on the HCM City Stock Exchange dropped by 36.7 percent compared to last Thursday’s busy year-end session, reaching 43.37 million shares. The value of yesterday’s trades totaled VND1.92 trillion (US$102.7 million), off 35.8 percent from the previous session.
Sacombank (STB) led the day’s trades, with a volume of 3.9 million shares changing hands, followed closely by Eximbank (EIB), with 3.5 million shares traded.
The southern market welcomed a listing of 11.8 million shares of Na Ri Hamico Mineral Company (KSS). On the first day of trading, KSS shares hit their ceiling price to close at VND60,000 ($3.2) on a volume of 52,300.
On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange yesterday, the HNX-Index also jumped by a whopping 6.94 percent to end the day at 179.84.
But trading volume fell by 15.32 percent to about 26.9 million shares, worth a combined VND879.5 billion ($47 million), a decline of 19.3 percent from the previous session.
PetroVietnam Construction (PVX) suprised as the most-active share on the northern market, with 7.8 million traded.
The market was giving clear signs of a steady uptrend, said analysts of FPT Securities Company in their daily report. The statement yesterday by State Securities Commission chairman Vu Bang that the commission might authorise faster T+2 clearance of shares this month also helped boost trading yesterday, they wrote.
Capital flows were likely to pour back into the securities market, following the decision of the Prime Minister last week to shut down gold trading floors, effective March 30.
"The stock market has a chance to draw capital flows from real estate and gold markets in the context of less attractive investment into real estate due to declined sources of financing and the enforcement of new real estate taxes and regulations, as well as the restriction on gold trading," agreed Tan Viet Securities Company General Director Nguyen Van Dung.
"Economic growth reaching 5.32 percent – beyond expectations and the highest rate among ASEAN countries – together with the State Bank retaining the prime rate at 8 percent, has made investors feel secure about the stability of monetary policy and put faith into market growth," said Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities Company General Director Tran Quoc Trieu.