Vietnamese shares soared in the first trading session of the week as investor confidence remained strong on expectations for good earnings reports.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 2.39 percent to close at 1,087.42 points. It gained a total of 1.1 percent last week.

The minor HNX-Index on the Hanoi Stock Exchange added 1.22 percent to end at 123.88 points after posting weekly growth of 1.6 percent at the end of January 19.

More than 350.9 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth nearly 8.9 trillion VND (395 million USD).

These trading figures were down 9.4 percent in volume and 6 percent in value compared to the previous week’s average daily numbers.

Across the two local exchanges, there were 251 gaining stocks, 250 declining ones and 101 stocks ending flat.

Large-cap stocks performed well: the VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the 30 largest shares by market capitalisation, surged 2.78 percent to 1,082.71 points with 22 stocks advancing.

Gainers in the VN30 basket included broker Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), Vietcombank (VCB), PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services Co (PVD) and Bao Viet Holdings (BVH). Those stocks jumped at least 3.8 percent each.

Among other large-caps that recorded strong growth were PetroVietnam Gas (GAS), Masan Group (MSN) and dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM).

The banking industry also posted strong growth on Monday as the industry index gained 2.9 percent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

The industry was led by Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and VPBank (VPB), which were up 5.8 percent and 2.2 percent respectively.

The brokerage sector also had a positive trading day, driven by MB Securities Co (MBS), HCM City Securities Corporation (HCM), VNDirect Securities Co (VND) and Saigon Securities Inc (SSI).

MBS jumped 2 percent, HCM gained 5.2 percent, VND added 3.2 percent, SHS advanced 6 percent and SSI moved up 5.2 percent.

Laggards were Vincom Retail Joint Stock Company (VRE) (2.5 percent), Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (STB) (2.3 percent), KIDO Group (KDC) (3.6 percent), Coteccons Construction Joint Stock Company (CTD) (2.4 percent) and Thanh Thanh Cong-Bien Hoa Joint Stock Company (SBT) (2.6 percent).

Due to a network crash at the end of the session, the Vien Thong A JSC (ATC) sell orders were not recorded, according to BIDV Securities Company (BSC).

The shutdown of the southern stock exchange could have made the index rise above its actual level on Monday, and this phenomenon also stimulated all future contracts to rally significantly following the peak of the VN30 Index, BSC said in its daily report.

Therefore, the market could be hit by investors’ short selling on January 23, BSC forecast.

“Investors are advised to continue short-term trading activities, preferably in short positions for short- and medium-term contracts as the index is expected to be adjusted for a logical level in Tuesday’s session.” - VNA