By the end of today's afternoon session, Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index continued its strong growth since market reopened February 11 after the 9-day Lunar New Year Festival (Tet) holiday.

The VN-Index went up 16.99 points (1.75 percent) to reach 987.57 points at the end of the session.

While the prices of 322 stocks fell and only that of 243 rose, the VN-Index was boosted by strong growth in major stocks like VHM, the real estate branch of Vietnam’s biggest private conglomerate Vingroup which grew by 6.3 percent this session.

Similarly, parent company Vingroup (VIC up 1.6 percent) and its retail subsidiary Vincom Retail (VRE up 5.9 percent) saw strong growth. Other stocks with the biggest impact on the index’s gain were Masan Group, another private giant (MSN up 4.3 percent); Vietcombank, Vietnam’s third biggest lender by assets (VCB up 1.7 percent); and the country’s biggest brewer Sabeco (SAB up 1.6 percent).

For the tenth session in a row, foreign investors were net buyers, at VND283.33 billion ($11.14 million). Foreigners were also net buyers on the Hanoi exchange which lists smaller companies, and UPCoM, set up to encourage unlisted public firms to participate in the securities market.

In the latest session, foreigners focused mostly on E1VFVN30, an investment fund that possesses stocks in all companies in the VN30 basket (biggest 30 companies on VN-Index), including Vietnam’s largest furniture manufacturer Hoa Phat (HPG), and Masan Group (MSN).