Sending a speech to the workshop "Upgrading the stock market, expanding capital mobilization channels for the economy" organized by Lao Dong Newspaper, Dr. Chu Tuan Linh, Postgraduate Lecturer, Hung Vuong University, said that the current picture of Vietnamese stocks is a growing foundation.
The Vietnamese stock market in recent years has had significant development in both scale and depth, gradually affirming its role as an important capital channel for the economy. Many important milestones have been established, reflecting the maturity of the market in the process of integration and modernization.
As of 2024, the stock market capitalization has reached about 95% of GDP - a very notable figure, because just 10 years ago, this scale was still modest, less than half of the current year. The rapid growth rate in capitalization shows the growing confidence of businesses and investors in the market, while reflecting the strong improvement in legal framework, trading conditions and information transparency.
Market liquidity has also reached high levels at many times, with trading values sometimes exceeding the 1 billion USD mark per day. This is a rare liquidity level in frontier and emerging markets, contributing to improving asset valuation capabilities, promoting capital turnover in the economy and reflecting the inner vitality of the market.
In the corporate bond segment - an important pillar of the capital market - restructuring efforts are being implemented in the direction of increasing transparency, protecting investors and establishing market standards approaching international practices. Despite many challenges, the proactive correction and reform of the bond market is a positive signal showing the determination to build a more balanced capital structure between bank credit and issuing debt instruments.
Notably, the number of individual investors has exceeded 7 million accounts, accounting for nearly 7% of the country's population. This is one of the highest rates in the ASEAN region, showing the popularity and attractiveness of the stock market to domestic investors. The increasing access of people to financial markets not only brings abundant capital resources to businesses, but also contributes to promoting the popularity and transparency of the entire system.
However, behind those impressive figures, the market has not yet fully exploited its potential in its long-term leading role for the economy.
One of the biggest bottlenecks is the investor structure. Currently, individual investors still account for an overwhelming proportion, but most of them are small investors, lacking long-term strategies and not fully equipped with financial knowledge, leading to crowd- based investment behavior, easily affected by rumors, short-term effects and causing instability in the market.
On the supply side, there are still many businesses that do not really consider listing as a sustainable development strategy, but only consider this a timely opportunity to mobilize capital. The "prone" mentality instead of long-term attachment has caused a part of the enterprise to not fully fulfill its obligations of information disclosure, financial transparency or improved governance. This hinders the process of improving the quality of goods in the market and limits the confidence of institutional investors, especially international capital flows.
In addition, the financial education platform in society is still limited. People lack basic knowledge of personal finance, are unable to assess risks and make investment decisions independently. As a result, the market is vulnerable to herd effects, unreasonable speculative waves and excessive psychological fluctuations, weakening the ability to allocate capital effectively that a mature stock market needs to undertake.
It can be said that the Vietnamese stock market has been laying very important foundations, gradually converging factors to form a truly emerging market. However, to reach a higher stature - becoming an effective and stable medium and long-term capital channel - the market needs to continue to restructure, improve the quality of investors, improve legal corridors, upgrade goods and promote financial education for the whole society.
