Foreign investors rush back to Vietnam markets

By Dat Nguyen September 3, 2020 | 07:02 pm PT

An investor looks at stock prices on a laptop at a brokerage in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

In what is seen as a positive development, 296 foreign portfolio investors opened securities accounts in August, representing 48 percent growth from the average second quarter number.

The Vietnam Securities Depository said the figure includes 16 organizations. In the second quarter 200 new accounts had been opened per month.

The August number is still 8 percent down from the same month last year, but analysts were pleased with it after the turbulence in the stock markets this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The month also saw Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index record the highest gain (10.43 percent) of all indexes globally. On Thursday the VN-Index climbed to a six-month peak of 903.97 points.

The total number of foreign investors as of the end of August was 34,807, including 4,720 organizations.

On the main bourse, the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE), foreign investors were net sellers during six of the first eight months this year with the cumulative outflows being worth over VND4 trillion ($173 million).