The stock market last week recorded an impressive increase right after the holidays with the spring opening session breaking through 36 points. Cash flow spread widely, but still led by Vingroup, oil and gas and banking groups.
The VN-Index maintained the support zone of 1,880 points for most of the time. At the end of the week, the VN-Index increased by 56.24 points (+3.08%) compared to the previous week and closed at 1,880.33 points. In February 2026, the VN-Index recorded an increase of more than 51 points.
Average liquidity on the HOSE floor reached 949 million shares/session, an increase of nearly 21% compared to the week before the Lunar New Year holiday, average trading value reached 31,248 billion VND/session.
The strongest gaining stocks are mostly those belonging to the oil and gas, oil and gas transportation, and energy groups, as cash flow is still looking for further opportunities, after larger names had a good increase before. Among them, the highlights are BSR, BFC, PC1 stocks setting new peaks, and PVT also had a weekend session recording the highest liquidity in more than 2 years.
Contrary to the bright picture of the general market, foreign capital continued to maintain a less positive state in the past week. The group of investors turned to net selling strongly with the focus in midweek. Accumulated after 5 sessions, foreign investors net sold VND 5, 181 billion on the whole market. Considering each exchange separately, foreign investors net sold VND 4,815 billion on HoSE, net sold VND 290 billion on HNX and net sold VND 77 billion on the UPCoM exchange.
In the selling session, net selling pressure focused strongly on the large-cap group. FPT was dumped the most with 5,426 billion VND, followed by VCB with a value of 948 billion VND and VNM with 723 billion VND. In the opposite direction, HPG led the list of net buyers with a value of up to 3,765 billion VND.
The paradox between the prolonged net selling trend of foreign investors and the positive developments of the market raises a big question about the actual impact of this capital flow on the general trend. Many opinions worry that net selling activities of foreign investors will become a significant drag on the market's upward momentum.
However, the market can still maintain its upward momentum even when the net selling scale of foreign investors increases, reflecting the fact that the driving force supporting the market is increasingly dependent on domestic capital flows, both in absorbing the amount of shares sold and in the role of leading the point-wise trend.
From a structural perspective, the rapid increase in margin balance in 2025 implies that the leading role of domestic capital flows is no longer based solely on equity, but is increasingly dependent on market credit. This mechanism helps amplify the purchasing power of domestic capital flows by 2-3 times.
Notably, in 2025, many securities companies have proactively reduced margin trading lending interest rates to attract new investors, thereby reducing leverage costs and increasing market participation momentum.
Experts assess that when credit policies continue to be maintained in the direction of easing and prioritizing supporting growth in 2026, cash flow supporting the stock market is likely to still maintain a positive state. The ability to expand leverage of the financial system will create more buying power for the market.
In this context, the net selling force of foreign investors, even if it continues, is difficult to create reverse pressure in the short term, because the absorption capacity of domestic cash flow is still supported by favorable domestic capital conditions. However, the level of differentiation between stock groups is likely to be still high, requiring increasingly clearer selection.
