Vietnam Insight

Highlights:

• Specifically, the overnight interest rate fell sharply to 5.50% per year, down 0.8 percentage points.
• Vingroup (HoSE: VIC) has recently announced its withdrawal from the list of registered participants in the North–South high-speed railway project.
• Sacombank changed its logo following the joining of Mr. Nguyen Duc Thuy. 
• Regarding senior management, on December 23, Mr. Nguyen Duc Thuy was appointed Acting CEO of Sacombank, immediately after stepping down from his role as Chairman of the Board at LPBank.

Assessment: Over the past week, the market experienced strong volatility driven by company-specific news related to the VIC group, creating a negative sentiment across the broader market. According to Vingroup, the company aims to concentrate maximum resources on other key projects currently underway. Moreover, during the early years of operation, the high-speed railway project is expected to struggle to generate sufficient cash flow to offset costs, while financial obligations would still need to be met regularly. However, the market’s performance in Friday’s session—closing at the day’s high—partly reflects that overall market sentiment remains resilient. We believe that market-wide pullbacks present opportunities to accumulate other stocks with solid fundamental foundations.

Technical view: The VN-Index closed the week at 1,729.8 points (+25.49 points; +1.5%) with slightly improved liquidity. The market had a highly volatile trading week, reaching an intraday high of 1,805 points. Gains during the week were driven by the VIC group, but strong selling pressure emerged following VIC-specific news. Overall, the market is trading above the 50-day moving average (MA50), maintaining an upward trend. Foreign investors recorded consecutive net buying throughout the week until Friday.

Investment ideas: Short-term investors may consider participating in stocks showing strong upward signals above the 20-day moving average (MA20), such as the banking, oil & gas, and utilities sectors. Medium-term investors can view pullbacks toward the 1,680 level as favorable opportunities for disbursement.