Passive capital inflows into the market may increase sharply
The fact that the Vietnamese stock market has been upgraded and started joining emerging market indices from September 2026 is attracting the attention of investors. This roadmap is implemented in many phases, lasting until September 2027.
Along with the upgrade process, the scale of passive capital flows that may flow into the market is also being concerned.
According to Mr. Nguyen Viet Sang - securities analyst at Mirae Asset Vietnam, Vietnam's official weight in the FTSE Emerging All Cap basket is expected to be in the range of 0.49-0.50%.
From this ratio, Mirae Asset Vietnam offers two scenarios for passive capital flows. If applying a ratio of 0.50% to all four corresponding indicators, passive capital flows are estimated at about 3.352 billion USD.
In the second scenario, the proportion of Vietnam is determined by taking the potentially investable capitalization of Vietnamese stocks announced divided by the latest market capitalization of each index. According to this assumption, passive capital flow is estimated at about 1.63 billion USD, close to Mirae Asset Vietnam's previous forecast of 1.53 billion USD.
However, Mr. Sang noted that the denominator in this calculation method still reflects the index structure before the review period, so there may be a difference compared to the final proportion.
Capital flows are not fully allocated immediately in September 2026. Vietnam is included in the index in 4 phases, with rates of 10% in September 2026, 20% in March 2027 and 35% in each phase in June 2027 and September 2027 respectively. Accumulation coefficients reach 10%, 30%, 65% and 100% respectively.
In the first phase, Mirae Asset Vietnam expects VIC to attract the largest passive capital flow, followed by VHM, HPG, VPB and STB. Considering the impact on liquidity, SSB is forecast to be the most affected, equivalent to about 2.1 days of average trading value of 20 sessions; followed by VIC with 1.4 days, MCH and VPL with about 1.3 days.
Expanding scale in international indicators
Not only attracting capital flows in implementation phases, the room for expansion and development of Vietnamese stocks in international indices after upgrades is also an issue raised.
Vietnam's weight in the FTSE Emerging All Cap Index has increased from about 0.34-0.35% in March to about 0.49-0.50% in August 2026.
The first deployment marks the official transformation of Vietnamese stocks into the emerging market index basket. Subsequent assessments will show whether market reforms and the emergence of new stocks can continue to expand Vietnam's investment scale.
SSI Research offers a positive scenario, in which Vietnam's weight in the FTSE Emerging All Cap Index continues to expand after the upgrade. With this scenario, Vietnam's weight will reach 0.50% in phase 1, 0.65% in phase 2, 0.80% in phase 3 and 0.95% in phase 4 of September 2027 respectively.
If this scenario occurs, the scale of passive capital flows into the Vietnamese stock market will be significantly larger than the case where the proportion is maintained around 0.49%.
To expand the scale in the index sets, Vietnam needs to increase the free-float stock ratio, add foreign ownership space and have more large-cap listed companies. Payment and enforcement activities, corporate governance and information disclosure also need to continue to be improved.
Along with that, the domestic institutional investor base needs to be expanded. According to SSI Research, intrinsic economic growth is not enough to increase Vietnam's proportion in international indices if that value is not reflected through listed securities with sufficient scale, high liquidity and easy access to international investors.
