Investors register to buy shares at the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Trading Center.

Securities firms were crowded with eager investors yesterday when the stock market resumed trading with strong gains in almost all stocks in the first session of the Lunar New Year.

At the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Trading Center (HSTC), the blue color, indicative of increasing stocks, almost filled the board yesterday. The market witnessed an increase in 105 out of 109 stocks, with 82 of them reaching ceiling prices.

Thanks to the strong gain in the majority of stocks yesterday, the VN-Index was pushed up by a staggering 45.77 points from the last session before the Tet holidays, setting a record high of 1,129.02 points by the end of the day. The market’s total trading volume was 8.4 million shares worth more than VND1 trillion.

Remarkably, the high demand for the 7.54 million shares, worth roughly VND856 billion, could not find sellers even at the ceiling prices. This is the first time in the past two years that the HSTC has witnessed such a large disparity between supply and demand, according to experts.

Like the Ho Chi Minh City bourse, the Ha Noi market also rose yesterday. At the end of trading it had risen 31.64 points to 409.23 with stocks of many enterprises also having rocketed to their ceiling prices.

According to Deputy Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung in a meeting with the State Securities Commission last week, this year Viet Nam will witness a new stage of development owing to a better legal environment and the equitization of many big corporations.

With such an optimistic start to the New Year, the Vietnamese stock market is currently considered as a good investment channel with increasing numbers of Vietnamese people continuing to pour into the market in the coming sessions.