The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange reached its highest level of the year on Friday, despite investors dumping blue chips to book profits.

VN-Index, Vietnam’s main stock index, wrapped up the week on a brighter note, gaining 7.8 points, 1.44 percent, to close at 547.99. Of the index members, 111 stocks advanced, 38 dropped and 25 were unchanged.

Trading volume rose 20 percent from Thursday’s total, with around 62.1 million shares worth VND2.7 trillion changing hands.

Stocks with large market capitalization, like dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM), furniture producer Hoang Anh Gia Lai Joint-Stock Co. (HAG) and property firm Suduco (SJS), all rose after the opening bell, but their share rise lost steam in the last two sessions over investors’ sharp sell-offs to take profits from previous rising days.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai, Vietnam’s biggest listed property developer, surged 4.76 percent to close at VND110,000.

The firm informed the bourse’s website that it will hold a special annual general meeting for shareholders next month to discuss a plan on issuing convertible bonds and the board of directors’ election. It will go ex-dividend on September 18.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai has sold nearly 2.8 million out of more than 3.3 million shares it had bought back earlier, according to a statement on the exchange’s website.

Pretax profits will rise to VND1.4 trillion (US$78.6 million) for the year ending December 31, compared with an earlier April target of VND1.15 trillion, Deputy General Director Vo Truong Son told Bloomberg.

PetroVietnam General Services Joint-Stock Corp. (PET) fell marginally 0.71 percent to VND28,000. Tran Thi Lan, wife of deputy general director Nguyen Si Dam, bought 5,500 shares last month, according to a statement on the bourse’s website.

Viet Nam Sea Transport and Chartering Joint Stock Company (VST) closed higher 4.62 percent at VND20,400. The maritime company said on the exchange’s website that Truong Dinh Son, vice chairman and general director, bought 100,000 shares to raise his holdings to 152,600 shares.

At the smaller bourse in Hanoi, the HNX-Index inched up 1.84 points, 1.1 percent, to finish at 169.18.

The UPCoM-Index of unlisted stocks slipped 0.23 point, 0.36 percent, to close at 62.81 points as of 11am.