Vietnam Insight

Labor market cooling. US stock futures were steady on Thursday after another winning session on Wall Street driven by expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week. In Wednesday’s regular session, the Dow jumped 0.86%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3% and 0.17%. Sentiment improved after softer-than-expected ADP data showed a surprise 32,000 drop in private payrolls, pushing Fed cut odds close to a certainty. In extended trading, Salesforce climbed 2% after issuing a stronger revenue outlook. Discount retailer Five Below gained nearly 2% on solid quarterly results, while Snowflake sank more than 7% after the AI cloud provider reported earnings losses. Investors now turn their attention to earnings reports from Dollar General, DocuSign and HP, among others, on Thursday.

Testing the upper bound of the 1,600–1,700 sideways range. VNINDEX closed at 1,737.24 (+5.47 points, +0.32%) with improved liquidity and higher than the average of the last 20 sessions. The market had 217 gainers and 91 losers. The stocks that contributed the most to the index's increase were MBB, HPG and VPL; the stocks that hindered the market were VIC, VHM and VJC. Foreign investors net bought VND1,043.47 billion. MBB alone was net bought for more than VND1,000 billion, followed by HPG and VIC.

Trading Strategy: Trading-oriented investors may monitor market reactions around the 1,650–1,700 region. If corrective sessions do not push the index back into the previous sideways channel, this could provide an opportunity to re-enter.Medium- to long-term investors can start accumulating selectively in sectors with solid earnings and attractive valuations, such as banking, financials, and construction materials,...