According to statistics on the HOSE floor, foreign investors have been net sellers for 5 consecutive sessions. In total, this group has net sold 35.52 million units, with a total net selling value of VND 1,844 billion.
On the HNX floor, foreign investors have net bought for 2 sessions and net sold for 3 sessions. In total, this group net bought 1.08 million units in the week, down 87.93% compared to the previous week; the total value was net selling 30.92 billion VND, while last week it net bought 92.76 billion VND.
With foreign capital flows continuously withdrawing from the Vietnamese stock market, investors are wondering whether upgrading the market and other supporting factors will be strong enough to reverse this trend?
Many securities companies still forecast that foreign capital flows can return strongly in the second half of 2025, especially when the world economy, including the US and Europe, is gradually stabilizing.
Recently, the World Bank (WB) estimated that FTSE and MSCI's upgrading of Vietnam to an emerging market will attract an additional 5 billion USD to the stock market, in which it is expected that there will be a significant cash flow before upgrading, because investors will actively bet on high valuations.
However, according to statistics from Dragon Capital Securities Company (VDSC), the net selling trend of foreign investors has lasted from 2024 to present, marking the 13th consecutive month that this group has withdrawn capital from the Vietnamese stock market. Looking further, from the beginning of 2023 to now, the total net selling value of foreign investors has reached 5 billion USD (about 128,400 billion VND) - an unprecedented high in history.
In particular, from the beginning of 2025 to now, foreign investors have net sold nearly VND12,000 billion, of which HOSE alone has net sold more than VND10,700 billion. Meanwhile, in the same period last year, foreign investors only net sold about 300 billion VND, showing that net selling pressure from foreign investors is increasing strongly.
SGI Capital analysts have warned of the risk of "disillusionment" with foreign capital even if the market is upgraded. Accordingly, Vietnam is a market with strong net selling in recent years, with the largest selling rate in the region if calculated on the capitalization or total value held by foreign investors.
According to SGI Capital, Vietnam's stock market valuation is not more attractive than other markets, although most of the capitalization is in the group with high cyclical risks such as banking, finance and real estate. Therefore, the expectation of foreign capital returning to net buying in 2025 will be difficult to achieve if the valuation is not cheap enough and exchange rate risks still exist.
SGI Capital also expressed the view that the Vietnamese stock market entering 2025 is less favorable than last year, because the two important driving forces are cash flow and internal growth of enterprises, both of which have shown signs of significant weakness.
In the context of the loose monetary policy running out of room, the State Bank's 16% credit growth plan for 2025 requires the banking system to mobilize a large amount of capital accordingly. This could cause interest rates to increase more strongly than expected and negatively affect domestic cash flow in the stock market, which has been exhausted after net selling by foreign investors and issuance from listed enterprises (mainly the securities and real estate sectors).
According to SGI Capital, periods of monetary easing always witness strong domestic cash flow into the stock market, absorbing and even overwhelming foreign supply. However, when the easing period passes, interest rates will increase again, domestic cash flow will weaken, causing liquidity to decrease. The risk of a bearish market will increase if foreign investors continue to sell net, or there are incidents that cause stock supply to increase dramatically.
