Foreign investors net buy $59M in Vietnamese stocks ahead of FTSE upgrade

With only a few trading sessions left before Vietnam officially moves into FTSE Russell’s secondary emerging market classification, foreign investor activity has begun to reverse after a wave of net selling in early September.

Vietnam’s stock market will be upgraded from frontier to secondary emerging market status from September 21.

On Tuesday, foreign investors bought more than VND3.07 trillion ($118.3 million) worth of shares and sold some VND2.35 trillion ($90.3 million), resulting in net buying of nearly VND720 billion ($27.7 million).

A day earlier, they had recorded net purchases of nearly VND822 billion ($31.7 million), bringing cumulative net buying over the two sessions to more than VND1.54 trillion ($59.4 million).

Most of the money flowed through regular order matching.

In contrast, foreign investors were net sellers of over VND3.06 trillion ($117.8 million) during the September 3-11 period.

The latest two sessions have therefore offset roughly half of that selling.

Foreign buying emerged shortly after FTSE Russell released a preliminary list of Vietnamese stocks eligible for potential inclusion in the FTSE Global All Cap Index on August 21.

Over the five sessions from August 24 to 28, foreign investors were net buyers of around VND952 billion ($36.6 million).

Money targets FTSE-listed stocks

Buying on Tuesday was particularly concentrated in stocks included among the 27 Vietnamese companies scheduled to enter the FTSE Global All Cap Index.

Eleven stocks on the list ranked among the strongest foreign net-buying targets, attracting a combined net inflow of some VND833 billion ($32.1 million).

Vietcombank (VCB) led the list, with net foreign purchases of more than VND228 billion ($8.8 million), followed by other lenders BIDV (BID), SeABank (SSB) and HDBank (HDB).

Foreign investors also targeted FPT, Vinpearl (VPL), Masan Consumer (MCH), VPBank (VPB) and SHB.

Masan (MSN) and MSB were also among the stocks bought on a net basis.

Most of these stocks ended up on Tuesday.

From September 21, the 27 Vietnamese stocks will officially join FTSE Russell’s global equity indices as Vietnam moves from frontier-market status to secondary emerging market status.

The initial inclusion will apply only a 10-percent investable weight, with FTSE Russell scheduled to increase Vietnam’s weighting through three further reviews in 2027.