Vietnam Insight

Wall Street pulls back as investors await Nvidia earnings. Stocks in the US closed lower on Monday as investors took a breather from last week’s powerful rally and turned their focus to Nvidia’s highly anticipated earnings report due Wednesday. The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% and the Dow Jones fell 349 points after last week’s record-setting surge, and the Nasdaq 100 finished 0.4% lower. Consumer staples, health and utilities sectors dragged the most. Investors also kept an eye on upcoming economic data, including Friday’s PCE inflation report, the Fed’s preferred gauge, which is expected to show core inflation rising to 2.9%.

Technical correction. VNINDEX closed at 1,614.03 (-31.44 points, -1.91%) with liquidity lower than the 20-session average. The market had 100 stocks increasing and 233 stocks decreasing. The stocks contributing the most to the market's increase were VIC, SSI, GAS while VPB BID and TCB contributed to the market's decrease. Foreign investors net sold about 1,715 billion, focusing on HPG and VPB.

Trading Strategy: The priority strategy is to hold positions and be ready to sell when targets are reached. If the market corrects to the 1,500–1,570 range, investors may consider partial disbursements into stocks with strong earnings and those benefiting from the market-upgrade expectation. However, if institutional inflows do not return at the 1,500–1,570 range, investors should reduce equity exposure to manage risk. We still expect the industrial real estate and retail sectors to offer good buying opportunities as their prices have not risen too much compared to the broader market, while a corrective phase is expected to open new buying opportunities in the securities sector