Small investors oppose expanding trading lot Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE)’s proposal to raise the minimum trading lot to 1,000 shares is receiving mixed opinions from market experts and investors. The proposal was initiated by newly-appointed General Director of HOSE Le Hai Tra as a solution to reduce system overloads which have troubled traders recently. A 1,000 minimum trading lot will limit the participation of small investors, while the stock market is moving towards fairness and equality, said a budding investor. “My friends and I, when joining the stock market, only have a few tens to several hundreds of millions of dong, raising the minimum trading lot to 1,000 shares will directly affect our investment capacity,” said individual investor Diep. “With expensive stocks, we may have to spend hundreds of millions of dong to buy the minimum 1,000 shares,” she said. According to Diep, the stock market has never had such a chance for growth. New cash flow into the market pushed liquidity to a record high level. However, the new proposal may not only prevent new investors from entering the market but also discourage existing investors. “The plan to raise the minimum trading lot to 1,000 shares could quickly reduce the number of orders delivered daily on HOSE. However, it will cause frustration among small investors who are directly affected by the plan as they think they are not protected,” said Do Bao Ngoc, Deputy General Director of Kien Thiet Securities Vietnam (CSI). “This plan, if in place, will affect the rapid development of the stock market under the current favourable conditions, one of which is great interest from global investors,” he said. “Under the new plan, the most affected are the investors whose trading accounts have VND1 billion or less,” said Nguyen Hoang Hai, Vice Chairman of Viet Nam Association of Financial Investors (VAFI) According to VAFI statistics, investors whose trading accounts have VND500 million or less …
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VIETNAM BUSINESS NEWS MARCH 9
Shares cut early gains to end lower as bank stocks decline Vietnamese shares trimmed early gains on Monday with the VN-Index closing lower as banking stocks came under selling pressure towards the final minutes of trading. The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange edged down 0.04 per cent to close at 1,168.27 points. It had risen 0.02 per cent last week. More than 652.7 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND15.6 trillion (US$673.9 million). Market breadth was positive with 274 gaining stocks and 183 losers. After the lunch break, the market fluctuated in a quite negative direction as many banking stocks dropped sharply and pushed the VN-Index down to the reference level. Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) fell 2 per cent to VND31,800 per share, VPBank (VPB) lost by 1.1 per cent to VND41,350 per share, Vietcombank (VCB) declined by 1.5 per cent to VND95,200 per share and Techcombank (TCB) dropped by 0.9 per cent to VND38,850 per share. On the opposite side, the oil and gas sector increased, becoming one of the best-performing sectors in Viet Nam on Monday, data on vietstock.vn showed. Vietnamese oil and gas stocks grew well, including PetroVietnam Gas JSC (GAS), Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD), PetroVietnam Power Corp (POW), and PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS). “The market was moving sideways around 1,168 points. Liquidity increased slightly from the previous session and market breadth was positive, showing that investment cash flow is spreading,” said BIDV Securities Co. “Foreigners were net sellers on both HoSE and HNX. The VN-Index is likely to consolidate in the range of 1,160-1,200 points in the coming sessions,” said the company. Foreign investors net sold VND1.25 trillion on HOSE, including PVPower (POW) (VND212.8 billion), Vinamilk (VNM) (VND203.9 billion) and Hoa Phat Group (HPG) (VND171.5 billion). Foreigners were net sellers on …
Investors feel insecure about HCM City Stock Exchange congestion, move to other bourses
The chronic congestion on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE) has caused losses for retail investors, making them insecure. Two investors look at stock prices on a laptop in HCM City. — Photo courtesy of Vietnambiz.vn Instead of congestion, and errors, only in the afternoon or near the close like previously, errors are now occurring even in the morning. For example, on March 5, just after the market opened, the security live board froze and failed to show realtime prices. Nguyen Kha, a veteran investor in HCM City, said he punched in an order to sell HBC shares on March 3 when it jumped to above VND18,500 (US$804 million), but only half his order was matched, and in the next few days had to sell at below VND18,000 since he needed money, losing VND1,000 per share. Another investor on HoSE said he has been in a constant state of insecurity recently and cannot do any other work after placing orders since one needs to watch the screen to see if the order is matched. This insecurity has caused many investors to switch to trading on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) and UPCoM, causing shares there to skyrocket in terms of both price and trading. On March 4 UPCoM saw trading worth VND1.7 trillion, twice the normal average. Drastic solutions To tackle the overload at HoSE, the State Securities Commission (SSC) said it is speeding up installation of a new trading system provided by the Korean Exchange (KRX). Last week it instructed the temporary transfer of shares from HoSE to HNX to much acclaim from both investors and analysts, but a difficult task since listed companies need to get approval from their shareholders. Besides, it could take securities companies one to two months to meet the technical changes involved in identifying the shares transferred to the HNX. Some need even six to nine months. Dr Nguyen Van Thuan of the University of Finance and Marketing told Thanh Niên (Youth) newspaper however that since this solution …