After a short pause on October 7, shares advanced on the following day on the two markets as investors readied for the release of companies' third quarter earnings reports, many betting on positive numbers.
The benchmark VN-Index on the main bourse in HCM City gained over 1.2 percent to close the session at 586.8 points, making up for the 0.3 percent slip on October 7.
On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also trimmed losses with an increase of 0.9 percent, ending at 80.4 points on October 8.
Real estate companies attracted a great deal of attention as many of the realty stocks climbed steadily. Of the top 20 property stocks by market value, spanning from 1 trillion VND (44.4 million USD) to 80 trillion VND (3.6 billion USD), 18 gained in value.
FLC Group (FLC), Becamex Infrastructure Development (IJC), Tan Tao Investment Industry (ITA), Hoang Quan Consulting-Trading-Service Real Estate (HQC) and Kinh Bac City Development (IJC) were the biggest gainers with increases of 5-6 percent. These were among the top 10 most active stocks in the HCM City's market on October 8.
FLC was the most active with 12.8 million shares traded, closing up 6 percent at 7,100 VND (0.31 USD) a share.
Most realty stocks increased between 1 percent and 3 percent.
"Real estate and construction companies typically have better earning results at the end of the year since they take more revenues and profits in the accounts," analysts at BIDV Securities Co wrote in a note.
They said the third-quarter earnings would be the focus of the market in October.
Many large-cap stocks also performed well on October 8. Insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Vietcombank (VCB), logistics Gemadept (GMD), steelmaker Hoa Phat Group (HPG) Vietinbank (CTG) and Sacombank (STB) gained between 3 and 6 percent.
Military Bank (MBB) saw the most foreign trade activity on October 8 as foreign investors bought almost 40.6 million shares worth 643.7 billion VND (28.6 million USD) after foreign holding in this lender increased to 160 million shares. More than 9.3 million MBB shares also changed hands on the stock exchange on October 8, but its price was down 2 percent to close at 15,100 VND (0.67 USD) a share.
Overall market condition was good with 42 percent of trading stocks advancing and 21.5 percent declining.
Liquidity also improved with a total of 247.6 million shares worth 3.7 trillion VND (164.4 million USD) being traded in the two markets in the afternoon, up 25 percent in volume and 14 percent in value over October 7.-VNA