After last Friday's slight correction of 0.08 percent, investors seemed eager to bottom fish. The nation’s benchmark index shot up 8 points to nearly 1,170 within the first 15 minutes of trading, when at-the-open orders are executed.

Later on, the index fluctuated but stayed in the green for most of the trading day, to end 13.47 points above its opening mark. The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the VN-Index is based, was predominantly green with 392 stocks gaining and just 83 losing.

Trading volume fell slightly over the previous session to VND14.51 trillion ($628.53 million), with 46 percent of it going towards the VN30, a basket of the stock market’s 30 largest caps.

The VN30-Index gained 1.10 percent this session, with 29 stocks gaining and only one losing.

The biggest gainers this session were TCH of real estate developer Hoang Huy Group, up 3.7 percent, POW of electricity generator PetroVietnam Power, up 3.1 percent, and MBB of mid-sized state-owned Military Bank, up 2.7 percent.

Blue chips of the private banking sector were some of the best performers, with TPB of TPBank rising 2.6 percent, VPB of VPBank 2.5 percent, STB of Sacombank 1.3 percent, HDB of HDBank 1 percent, and TCB of Techcombank 0.4 percent.

Of Vietnam’s three biggest state-owned lenders by assets, CTG of VietinBank added 2.4 percent, BID of BIDV 1.1 percent, and VCB of Vietcombank 0.4 percent.

VIC of private conglomerate Vingroup, the HoSE’s largest cap, added 0.4 percent. VRE of its retail arm Vincom Retail gained 2.6 percent and VHM of real estate arm Vinhomes grew 0.5 percent.

Another sector doing well was real estate, with KDH of Khang Dien House up 1.3 percent, PDR of Phat Dat Real Estate, 0.8 percent and NVL of Novaland, 0.6 percent.

Other major gainers included FPT of IT services giant FPT, up 2 percent, SSI of brokerage SSI Securities Incorporation, 1.6 percent, and VNM of dairy giant Vinamilk, also 1.6 percent.

PLX of petroleum distributor Petrolimex was the only ticker that lost in this session, down 0.5 percent.