Vietnam Insight

▶ The market traded cautiously during Thursday's session with lackluster liquidity, as total matched value fell below 20 trillion VND. Despite lingering in the red for most of the trading day, a late-session recovery in several stocks helped the index close with a gain of over 3 points. Overall, today remained a cautious session as cash flow stayed hesitant and has yet to aggressively enter the market, even though many stocks have reached attractive discount zones. Foreign investors returned to a net selling position, with the heaviest selling pressure concentrated on two tickers: DXG (423 billion VND) and VIC (331 billion VND).

▶ At the close, the VN-Index rose 3.32 points (+0.2%) to finish at 1,676.98 points; the HNX-Index edged up 0.11 points (+0.04%) to 253.23 points. Market-wide liquidity dropped to 19.9 trillion VND, corresponding to just over 754 million shares traded. Foreign investors net sold 878 billion VND during the session, with the most significant selling pressure seen in DXS, VIC, and FPT. On the flip side, MBB, TCB, and VND were the notable tickers seeing net buying interest.

▶ Technical perspective: The market continued to trade in a sideways-to-struggle manner around the MA50 support level and remained below the key MA10 and MA20 averages. The low trading liquidity reflects a hesitant sentiment regarding increasing portfolio weightings, as the short-term trend lacks confirmation signals. The prevailing trend is characterized by fluctuations within the 1,600 – 1,700 point range. Short-term volatility is likely to persist, and the market requires sessions with stronger and more broad-based capital flows to convincingly conquer the 1,700-point threshold.

Base Case Scenario: The market stages a positive recovery and surpasses the 1,700 level (temporarily breaking out of the 1,600–1,700 sideways range) driven by improved liquidity, better market breadth, and the return of foreign investors. We anticipate the market will face certain resistance when revisiting previous highs, likely consolidating around the 1,800 level before cash flow improves following the conclusion of the Party Congress in early 2026.

Negative Scenario: Downward momentum accelerates with increasing volume on the downside, with no bottom-fishing demand emerging around the 1,550–1,580 support zone. In this scenario, the market could continue heading toward the 1,500 support level and lower zones for testing.

Strategy: Investors need to select stocks carefully given that the VN-Index is being heavily influenced by movements in the VIC group. Medium- and long-term investors can begin to partially disburse capital into stocks with solid earnings results and sufficiently attractive valuations, such as Banking, Finance, and Construction Materials. Short-term investors should monitor cash flow and price improvements to select stocks in sectors such as Electricity, Industrial Parks, and Technology…