Vietnam VN index was down 34% from the start of the year. It has been one of the best perfoming markets in the past years. Just thought I would throw this one out there to get some comments.
Its still a small market. That place as a whole is booming. Its in the early phase of China type growth, and they have 1000 miles of awesome coastline! Actually thought of trading from there, but the internet there sucks!
Look for a piece about the place recently on NPR. Its seems the whole economy was based on textiles and they were about to lose it all due to some US import law with most factories there now taking jobs at a loss (also their profits were being eliminated by energy prices). The conclusion from the trade association people was that they were 2 years away from recovery IF the import tarrifs were rescinded.
Watch the real estate bubble here. If they can't engineer a soft landing, the equity market is in serious trouble. Off 50% from all time highs this month, the bigger foreign funds are net buyers. If it was more liquid a short term play would be in order. But most volume is actually done hand to hand--shares are physically exchanged in coffee shops. There are web sites like ebay here which only trade in stocks. Very cool, very New York city 1850s =)
Just saw this: Wednesday, March 5, 2008 March 05, Foreigners Net Buyers Of VND111.7 Billion Of Shares Foreign investors were net buyers of VND111.7 billion ($ 6.97 million) of Vietnamese stocks Wednesday, out of a total VND513 billion traded, the Ho Chi Minh Securities Trading Center said. Volume traded totaled 9.87 million shares, with foreigners accounting for 23.5% of the total, according to the stock market operator. (Dow Jones)
And this: Foreign ownership caps may be lifted for OTC market Foreign investors may be allowed to buy up to a 49-percent stake in enterprises traded on the over-the-counter (OTC) market, even in restricted sectors like banking and finance, once the OTC market comes officially under the control of the Ha Noi Securities Trading Centre (HaSTC) in the coming weeks, according to a draft regulation by the State Securities Commission and the Ministry of Finance. Lifting the lid on ownership ratios would help attract foreign investors to the OTC market, suggested Nguyen Vu Quang Trung, deputy director of the Ha Noi Securities Trading Centre. If foreign traders were allowed to buy shares on the stock exchange with US dollars, as the State Securities Commission proposed recently, the OTC market would help draw away excessive flows of foreign currency towards the official stock market, Trung noted. Nguyen Son, head of the commissionâs Market Development Department, said that higher levels of foreign investment would also help boost liquidity and lower the risks of the OTC market for all investors. The higher foreign ownership rate would help create more chances for domestic investors in the new market,â Son said. As of February 22, 883 enterprises with a total charter capital 18 trillion VND (1.1 billion USD) have registered to sell shares on the OTC market, 21 of which were in the petroleum, energy and real estate sectors. Twenty-nine commercial banks with a total charter capital of 25 trillion VND (1.6 billion USD) will also trade shares on the OTC market. Under the draft regulations, both unlisted shares and bonds would be traded on the OTC market. The draft would recognise put-through and automatic trading. Setting up a more closely managed OTC market at the Ha Noi Securities Trading Centre was approved in December. Under the original plan, the supervised OTC market would commence by the end of this month. (VNA)