Hanoi (VNA) 𒆙-Shares rose on July 4 as traders continued to focus on large-cap stocks onexpectations of a longer rally.

The benchmark VN-Indexon the HCM Stock Exchange was up 0.31 percent to close at 778.88 points. On the Hanoi StockExchange, the HNX-Index increased 1.20 percent to end at 100.33 points. Financial stocks werethe market’s driving force with securities firms seeing an average growth of2.5 percent and bank stocks rising 1.1 percent on average, data on vietstock.vn showed. Six of nine listed bankson the two exchanges advanced, of which the three biggest listed lenders,Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG) and BIDV (BID), went up 1 percent, 2 percentand 1.5 percent, respectively. Three smaller banks onthe northern market, including Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Sai Gon-Hanoi Bank(SHB) and Nam Viet Bank (NVB) increased between 1.9-5.3 percent. Big brokerage firms suchas Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), HCM Securities (HCM), BIDV Securities (BSC),VNDirect Securities (VND), FPT Securities (FTS), Vietinbank Securities (CTS)and Sai Gon-Hanoi Securities (SHS) leapt between 1-6.4 percent. Other large-cap gainersincluded PV Gas (GAS), Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), brewer Sabeco (SAB),steelmakers Hoa Phat Group (HPG) and Hoa Sen Group (HSG) and PetroVietnamDrilling and Wells Service (PVD). On the defensive side,rising profit-taking selling pressure pushed down Vinamilk (VNM), VinGroup(VIC), Masan Group (MSN), Mobile World Group (MWG), DHG Pharmaceutical (DHG)and FPT Corp (FPT). “The market maintainedits uptrend after suffering volatility around 760 for the VN30. However, westill forecast a short-term decline in this zone,” Tran Hai Yen, a stockanalyst at Bao Viet Securities Co wrote in a report on July 3. The key VN-Index gained1 percent last week and has expanded 5.2 percent last month. Yen suggested investorstake advantage of rally sessions to partially sell short-term positions,especially stocks which have dramatically risen. A total of 265.4 millionshares worth a combined 4.6 trillion VND (202.6 million USD) were traded on thetwo markets, almost unchanged compared to last week’s figures. Foreign traderscontinued to comb local shares on the HCM Stock Exchange, picking up a net buyvalue of 92.2 billion VND, marking an 11th consecutive netbuying session. They were net sellers in Hanoi’s market, however, for a modestvalue of 14 billion VND.-VNA