There are so many incredible stories about the 10-year-old Vietnamese stock market which can be heard only in Vietnam.
Once considered the most attractive investment channel for securities investors with attractive profits, but the stock market has become less lucrative in the investors’ eyes.
Stocks are cheaper than ever
On the first days of the stock market, the stock market prices were always higher than the face value (VND10,000). There were also the securities with the values of tens of thousands of dong or VND100,000 (USD4.78).
However, the golden age of the stock market was short. The investment channel has become less attractive in the last two or three years with the indexes decreasing rapidly. The VN Index, shows the “thermometer” of the Vietnamese stock market, once climbed to the peak of 1000 points, but has dropped to 400 points.
The prices of stocks have also plunged dramatically with ¾ of shares seeing the market prices falling down to below the face value. Especially, many shares are traded at VND2,000-VND3,000 (a meal for popular people costs no less than VND20,000).
Especially, there are the shares with unbelievably low prices, less than VND1,000 VKP, the stock of a plastics joint stock company, for example, once dropped to VND600 er share.
Number of companies given warnings reaches record high
Bad news has come in rapid fire in recent days: a lot of listed companies have been given warnings due to the heavy loss in 2011.
The HCM City Stock Exchange late last week gave the warning to NTB of a construction and transport works, after the company incurred a heavy loss in 2011.
Prior to that, VIG, a securities company, CIC, an investment and construction company also received the warnings for the same season.
The stock millionaire also meets misfortunes
It was a big surprise to all investors that the shares of Saigon Postel (SGT) was put into the list of the companies receiving warnings due to the heavy loss of 113 billion dong in 2011 it incurred.
The information surprised people because the company belongs to a well-known businessman, who was recognised as the richest stock millionaire in 2009 – Dang Thanh Tam.
Tam said that his business performance has been influenced by the economic downturn. The current difficulties have forced potential clients delay their plans to expand business. As a result, the revenue from land and workshop leasing has dropped dramatically.
Listed companies take loss, but their shares still appreciate
Many people find it difficult to understand why listed companies have poor business performance, but their shares are still much in demand.
The stock market has become choppy in recent days with the sharp increases of share prices despite the poor business performance of listed companies.
Ignoring the bad news, the shares priced at between VND1,000 and VND5,000 have been appreciating continuously, staying at the ceiling levels for a lot of trading sessions. This has helped both the Hanoi and HCM City bourses regain the upturn in recent trading sessions.
Explaining the absurdity, investors say that in the current difficult circumstances, when there is no positive information that support the stock prices, it would be the best choice to inject money in the stocks with low prices.
However, the Vietnamese stock market is still experiencing gloomy days, when many listed shares are not “high quality goods”, and investors always hear bad news.
