Vietnam was officially included in the FTSE Emerging Index basket by FTSE Russell from September 21, opening up expectations to attract at least 1.7 billion USD of passive capital during the 4-stage transition process, not including capital from active funds.
Vietcap Securities Company forecasts that foreign capital inflows into the market may reach from 6 to 8 billion USD, even reaching 10 billion USD in the most positive scenario. This capital source includes the participation of passive index funds and active investment funds, in which active fund groups often have larger disbursement scales.
Vietnam's proportion is expected to account for about 0.35% in the FTSE Emerging All Cap basket and 0.227% in the FTSE Emerging index, creating great demand for large-cap and highly liquid stocks on the exchange.
The roadmap for bringing Vietnamese stocks into global index sets will start from September 21, 2026 and be implemented in four phases within a year to ensure stability. The first phase in September 2026 will be implemented with a proportion of 10%, followed by 20% disbursement in March 2027 and the last two phases of 35% each in June and September 2027.
Roadmap allocation helps the market absorb large capital flows smoothly, limit abnormal price fluctuations and support the transition process to take place smoothly for international institutional investors.
The group of leading listed companies meeting FTSE Global All Cap's strict standards on capitalization, liquidity and free transfer ratio will be the focus of attracting cash flow.
Stock codes of leading Vietnamese companies, typically HPG, VCB, BID, VHM, VIC, MSN, SAB, FPT and VNM, along with many other potential stocks, are expected to record an increase in foreign ownership ratio. The official list and detailed ratio of each code will be announced by this ranking organization at the end of August 2026 based on the latest updated data.
According to a report from VPBankS, only 4/31 component stocks of FTSE Vietnam Index have foreign ownership ratios equivalent to 50% of the maximum ownership ratio as of the beginning of April, showing that the remaining room is very abundant in most of the portfolio.
This is a direct consequence of the continuous net selling streak of foreign investors in the Vietnamese stock market in recent times. In the opposite direction, this means that passive capital flows following the FTSE Emerging Index are likely not to be limited by foreign ownership limits when Vietnam is officially put into the basket from September 21.
In the list of 26 stocks expected to benefit from upgrades, HPG leads in passive capital flow estimated at 123.69 million USD, thanks to the remaining foreign ownership space of 49% and a proportion of 10.2% in the FTSE Vietnam Index. VHM estimates to absorb 76.58 million USD with foreign ownership space of 50.01%, followed by MSN with 80.01 million USD and foreign ownership space of 100%, FPT with 75.55 million USD and foreign ownership space of 49%.
Notably, the group of banking stocks has significantly lower foreign ownership space due to the tight control of foreign ownership limits in this industry.
Conversely, securities and consumer goods stocks have almost absolute foreign ownership potential. SSI, VCI and VND all recorded 100% foreign ownership potential, while VNM is the stock with the highest actual foreign ownership ratio in the portfolio at 48.9%, but there is still significant foreign ownership potential due to the maximum foreign ownership limit stipulated at 100%.
The estimated weight of Vietnamese stocks in the FTSE baskets after upgrade ranges from 0.024% to 0.35%. Specifically, FTSE Emerging All Cap recorded 0.35%, FTSE Emerging at 0.227%, FTSE All-World was 0.024%, and FTSE Global All Cap was 0.037%.
