HSBC said that in October, Vietnam’s stock market continued to drop together with the fall of the world’s stock market. However, Vietnam’s stocks remained more expensive than in other Asian countries.

Vietnam’s stock market fell by 24% if counting in VND, and 25% if counting in US dollars, which is close to the 25% fall of MSCI for Asian markets, with the exception of Japan.

If counting in US dollars, Vietnam’s market has fallen by 64% so far this year, while the decrease is 52% for Asian markets, with Japan being the only exception.

The report pointed out that the outstanding characteristic of the stock market in the last several weeks were the net sales by foreign investors. In September, the net sales by foreign investors reached US $21 million, while the figure rose to US $48 million in October.

However, according to HSBC, foreign investors still hold the listed stocks worth US $3.1 billion and some US $1.5 billion worth of unlisted stocks. Therefore, foreign investors may continue selling stocks in the time to come.

HSBC believes that one of the main reasons that led to the continued net sales is that Vietnam’s stocks are still more expensive than in other Asian markets

At the end of October, the P/E Index was calculated at 10.4, while it was 9.2 in other Asian markets, except Japan. 

HSBC’s experts have doubts about whether foreign investors will continue injecting more money in to Vietnam or not. HSBC, on one hand, says the long term potentials of Vietnam’s stocks is not in doubt, but in short term, the expected profit from Vietnam’s market proves to be lower than other Asian markets, like China or India.

HSBC believes that Vietnam’s stock market will still face a lot of difficulties by the end of the year. Foreign investors may keep selling their stocks and the stock prices may remain less attractive than other markets, while it remains unclear about the profits of businesses.