Stock investors refrain from leverage as market slides

The loan value given by 20 brokerages that have released their second quarter earnings has dropped by nearly 30 percent from the first quarter to VND71 trillion ($3.04 billion).

This is nearly their combined charter capital, even though it was nearly double their charter capital last year. Vietnam laws do not allow brokerages to provide leverage more than twice their charter capital.

SSI Securities Corporation and VNDirect both saw their loans declining by over 30 percent between the first and second quarter.

Other brokerages like Viet Capital Securities, FPT Securities and MB Securities saw the figure dropping over 20 percent.

Some companies have seen income from loan interests dropping.

It fell by 15 percent between the two quarters for SSI and 9 percent for VNDirect.

Other companies like FPT Securities, MB Securities, Ho Chi Minh Securities and Viet Capital Securities posted a decline of 4-12 percent.

Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index has lost 21 percent this year.