Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index gained 9.49 points, or 0.91%, to close at 1,049.12 on Friday, contrary to earlier forecasts of a market fall ahead of the country's long national holiday.
The Vietnamese people will enjoy five days off, from Saturday to next Wednesday, to celebrate the death anniversary of Hung Kings - the legendary founders of the nation, National Reunification and May Day.
The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), represented by the index, saw up to 250 gainers and 126 losers, with over 613 million shares changing hands for nearly VND10.3 trillion ($438.95 million), an increase of VND1.6 trillion from the previous session.
DIG of DIG Corp. took the lead in trading value with nearly VND630 billion ($26.85 million), followed by SSI of Saigon Securities, HPG of steel maker Hoa Phat, DXG of Dat Xanh Group, and NVL of Novaland Group.
The VN30 index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest-cap stocks, rose 9.89 points to 1,051.43.
Real estate and securities groups showed the best performance with most stocks expanding more than 2% and some even hitting their ceiling prices with no sellers.
VHM of Vinhomes and VIC of Vingroup rose 4.2% and 3.2%, respectively, becoming the main support for the VN-Index to make the biggest gain in the past three weeks. Several banking codes like VPB of VPBank, CTG of VietinBank, and TPB of TPBank also had a positive impact on the major index.
Foreign investors turned net buyers on the HoSE to the tune of over VND100 billion ($4.26 million). They mainly net purchased MWG of Mobile World Investment Corp., VNM of Vinamilk, and SSI.
The HNX-Index on the Hanoi bourse went up 1.62 points to 207.48, while the UpCOM-Index on the unlisted public company market increased 0.35 points to 77.77.
Compared to the end of last month, the VN-Index decreased by 15 points with low liquidity.
During April, the index sometimes approached 1,100 points but then faced strong selling pressure to drop to around 1,030 points. The market capitalization of the HCMC bourse is now VND4.16 quadrillion ($117.28 billion).