Vietnam scores world’s biggest stock gain in Jan-Feb

Bullish investors drove Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index to a high note on Wednesday, securing it a greater gain than any other global markets in the first two months of this year.

The VN-Index closed at 1,120 on February 28, up a staggering 14 percent from the beginning of the year, which was the biggest gain worldwide and nearly three times more than the Nasdaq.

The index currently stands at 70 percent higher than in January 2017, making the Vietnamese stock market one of the world’s best performing and most attractive.

Vietnam’s stock market has been upbeat since the second half of last year.

Market capitalization soared more than 60 percent from 2006 to VND5 trillion ($220 million) daily in 2017, and the figure has rocketed to VND9.6 trillion ($422 million) in early 2018.

The gains may extend, helping the VN-Index surpass its March 2007 peak, as the gauge is forecast to reach 1,210 by the end of 2018, according to a survey of 10 strategists conducted by Bloomberg.

Foreigners have been net buyers of the country’s shares this month, even as they pulled a combined $14 billion from nine Asian markets tracked by Bloomberg.

The VN-Index, a capitalization-weighted index of all the companies listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, closed at a 10-year high of 984.24 on the last working day of 2017, earning Vietnam the nickname Asia’s “frontier market” with a 47 percent gain.

Analysts talking to VnExpress said that the market will keep up this momentum going into 2018, bolstered by low risks and high consumer confidence.

Nguyen The Minh, a senior analyst at Saigon Securities Incorporation, said the VN-Index could reach 1,300 by the year-end, while RongViet Securities Corporation in Saigon said it could finish as high as 1,640.

Vietnam’s economy grew 6.8 percent in 2017, breaking its own 6.7 percent target which both government officials and economists had considered ambitious.

The country remains one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and has set a goal of expanding a further 6.7 percent this year.