May May Come With Hope

Over the weekend, transactions became lackluster across the board with liquidity nose-diving. On the HSX exchange, the total order-matching transactions during the first session of this week continued to fall headlong when only 60.2 million stocks were traded, a plunge of almost 27% over the weekend. On the Hanoi bourse, the total order-matching transactions reached only 53.2 million stocks, dropping by 19.34% over last Friday.

Transaction volume has always been market support. Consecutive falls in transaction volume are worrying investors. Some have even maintained that the bearish market would extend to the end of May.

Domestic investors’ bearish sentiment may have originated from Wall Street’s old adage “Sell in May and go away.” The motto describes investors’ tendency to sell their stock portfolio they have gained in the previous six months, starting from the first of November of the previous year to the last day of April of the following year.

Despite the current falling liquidity, it does not seem that the cash flow is going out of the stock market. Analysts argue that in April, many stocks in several industries gained strongly, such as real estate, steel and oil and gas. When stock prices rose to a certain level, investors tended to sell stocks to take profit.

Moreover, recent changes have been made in the monetary policy. They resemble small stimulus packages aimed to avert an economic stagnation. This move initiated by policymakers will give momentum to the stock market.

As the stock and realty markets are receiving strong support from the monetary policy, the exchanges are attracting not only individual and institutional investors but also luring idle money from the people.

All stakeholders—from the authorities and securities firms to investors, domestic and foreign alike, and investment funds—have adopted a positive vision for Vietnam’s stock market. The current slump fails to prevent several analysts from expecting marked improvements by early May.

At the close of the April 24 transaction session, the VN-Index rose by 0.48 point, or 0.1% of its value, to stand at 465.65 points, with more than 88.33 million stocks traded, worth over VND1.35 trillion. On the Hanoi bourse, the HNX-Index gained 0.76 point, or 0.98% of its value, to stand at 78.57 points, with 67.1 million stocks traded, worth over VND733 billion.