In yesterday's session (8.26), along with the recovery of the banking group, the improvement of the VIC-VHM pair, especially VHM, to the ceiling, contributed greatly to helping the VN-Index have the strongest increase in more than 4 months. Entering this morning's trading session (8. 27), profit-taking pressure appeared in the Vingroup pair, causing these two stocks to turn down more than 1.7%, along with the decline of some bank stocks such as VPB and LPB, putting pressure on the market. However, very quickly, the market found a new lifebuoy, which was VCB.
However, the strong selling pressure from both domestic and foreign investors in the afternoon session caused the market's increase to narrow significantly.
At the end of the session on August 27, the VN-Index increased by 5.15 points to 1,672.78 points. The value of matched orders on HoSE reached about 44,500 billion VND.
Foreign investors returned to strong net selling with VND4,190 billion in the whole market. On HoSE alone, foreign investors net sold about VND4,061 billion.
It can be seen that the Vietnamese stock market is experiencing a significant change in foreign investors' transactions in July and the first half of August 2025. From a state of strong net buying, foreign investors suddenly switched to large-scale net selling, creating pressure on the VN-Index and causing cautious sentiment in the market.
In the first half of July 2025, foreign investors began to net buy strongly and became the growth driver of the market. The total net buying value of this group on all three exchanges is more than VND 12,000 billion. On the HOSE alone, this group net bought more than VND 8,100 billion with 11 consecutive net buying sessions.
However, the wind changed direction from mid-July when foreign investors began to sell net, despite the strong upward trend of the market with the setting of many new records in both scores and liquidity. In the second half of July, foreign investors net sold more than VND4,660 billion on all three exchanges, with 9 net selling sessions out of a total of 12 trading sessions.
The net sale move continued in August. Up to this point in August, this group has net sold nearly 30,000 billion VND. The net selling pressure of foreign investors has put pressure on market indicators even though domestic cash flow is playing a major role in the increase and liquidity of the market.
Experts say that short-term profit-taking, flexible characteristics of speculative capital flows, increased exchange rate risks and the trend of cash flow shifting to developed markets are the main reasons that influence the decision on the portfolio structure of foreign investors.
However, experts still assess that in the long term, the Vietnamese stock market is still attractive to foreign investors and flexible cash flow is expected to soon return to the Vietnamese market. The above assessment is based on the market situation.
That is, recently, the market has witnessed a sharp increase in the VN-Index with high liquidity, the average trading value reached more than 2.1 billion USD/session and reached a record of 3 billion USD in the first session of August. Vietnam has become the market with the highest liquidity in the ASEAN region, which creates a basis to attract foreign investors.
In addition, the new net buying trend is in the early stages. Statistics for the past 5 years show that foreign investors have net sold about 5 - 6 billion USD on the Vietnamese stock market. Meanwhile, the net purchase value in July only reached about 500 million USD, which is still quite modest.
The trend of net buying again in emerging markets has just begun, so the Vietnamese stock market will continue to benefit from this momentum. In addition, if FTSE upgrades the Vietnamese market to emerging market in the coming time, it is estimated that it can attract an additional 2 - 3 billion USD in foreign capital.
