The stock market has just started a rather gloomy new week as liquidity continues to decline. The matched order value on HoSE only reached about 10,500 billion VND, the lowest since the session on July 17.
In fact, this is not a new development that has appeared in recent sessions. Stock market liquidity has weakened for a long time since April and has almost remained at a low level throughout the second quarter of 2026.
One of the important reasons for the weakening cash flow on the stock market is the liquidity pressure of the banking system. The capital demand of the economy is very large as Vietnam sets a high growth target. Meanwhile, credit is increasing faster than mobilization, while the capital market, especially the corporate bond channel, is not really favorable.
This makes the economy continue to depend heavily on bank credit, forcing banks to increase capital mobilization. The general level of deposit interest rates is therefore trending upwards.
Last week, the Government and the State Bank of Vietnam issued directives on controlling the general level of interest rates, along with many banks starting to reduce interest rates. This is a positive signal for the stock market, but it should not be simply understood that when interest rates decrease, money will immediately flow strongly into stocks or real estate.
The most important impact first of all lies in the real economy. When lending interest rates decrease and credit access is improved, businesses can reduce financial costs, expand investments and improve profits. From a capital market perspective, a stable interest rate level also reduces the opportunity cost of holding stocks and supports asset valuation.
It should be further noted that the latest direction of the Government not only requires stabilizing the general level of interest rates and reducing lending rates, but also emphasizes that credit must go to the right sectors, the right targets and tightly control risks. This shows that the current orientation is to support growth on the basis of macroeconomic stability, and should not be understood as a strong and widespread monetary easing cycle.
The impact on the market in the short term may be psychologically positive, but the impact on business profits will take longer and depends on the ability to reduce actual interest rates.
There are also many questions raised about why stock market liquidity is continuously weakening at a time when the story of market upgrades is entering an important stage. On August 21, FTSE Russell is expected to announce the list of Vietnamese stocks in the FTSE Global Equity Index Series (FTSE GEIS), before the official upgrade takes effect from September 21.
Dr. Nguyen Duy Phuong, Director of Financial Investment Analysis Division of DG Capital, said that the room to create a strong widespread increase will no longer be too large, because the story of FTSE upgrade has been significantly priced by the market in advance. Therefore, the market will have stronger differentiation. Stocks with high probability of being put into FTSE GEIS, large capitalization, high liquidity and likely to be allocated a large proportion by ETF funds may continue to be actively anticipated by cash flow. Conversely, stocks that have increased very strongly thanks to the upgrade story but are not sure about being put into the basket may face profit-taking pressure.
The biggest problem at this time is no longer whether the market is cheap or not, but whether liquidity returns or not. Experts assess that the liquidity of the stock market is often cyclical. And investors are waiting for a scenario from August to November that may witness improved cash flow. In which November also coincides with the time when securities companies may start to accelerate disbursement in the fourth quarter of 2026.
