With a 10-year high growth rate of 7.02 percent in 2018 and macroeconomic stability, Vietnam is expected to continue to be an attractive stock market in 2019.
2018 was a year of full ups and downs for securities investors. After becoming one of the fastest growing markets in 2017, the stock index continued gearing up in the first months of 2018, exceeding the historic peak of 1,170 points on March 21.
The VN Index later climbed to the new peak of 1,204 points on April 9.
However, the bullish market was then followed by a succession of correction days in May. The downward trend continued in the second quarter, and the third and early fourth quarters, before falling to the lowest ever 880 points on October 30.
Not only small investors, but investment funds and institutional investors also suffered from misleading investments.
On December 21, the VN Index closed at 912 points, a decrease of 72 points compared with earlier this year, or 7.3 percent. However, compared with the peak of 1,204 points, the VN Index dropped by 24.2 percent.
The downward trend was seen in nearly all markets over the globe. The Chinese market, for example, fell so dramatically that it needed the government’s intervention.
The biggest positive factor in Vietnam was that, while other emerging and developing markets had to face foreign capital outflow, Vietnam still saw net capital inflow.
A report from the General Statistics Office (GSO) showed that the foreign portfolio investment capital to Vietnam in the first 11 months reached $7.64 billion, a sharp rise of 44.4 percent in comparison with the same period of 2017.
Meanwhile, the net purchase of foreign investors as of December 21, 2018 had reached VND43 trillion. In the last trading session of 2018, foreign investors’ net purchase was reported at VND500 billion.
The decision by FTSE Russel to add Vietnam to the watchlist to upgrade from frontier to emerging market in late September was an important milestone for Vietnam in 2018.
The last trading session of 2018 closed with the VN Index falling by 9.3 percent compared with earlier in the year.
However, analysts say there are reasons to be optimistic about investment opportunities in 2019.
The latest report of the National Finance Supervision Council showed optimistic prospects about the economy with the exchange rate stability, reasonable inflation rate of below 4 percent, and predicted high GDP growth rate of 7 percent.
According to a report on Vietnamnet