Investors look for vital signs of market life

October 23, 2011 | 21:58

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Despite a gloomy domestic stock market outlook, numerous retail investors are prepared to play the waiting game for the market to sparkle again.

At SeABank Securities (SABS) in Hanoi, Nguyen Van Quy is among a small group of investors who head to the firm’s electronic stock trading board each day hunting opportunities. “Kim Long Securities (KLS) is just around VND10,000 a share now and if it fell, I will start to cash in on this stock,” said Quy, a Hanoi-based 55-year-old investor.

Quy was among some investors who got stung by the market and went to the State Securities Commission, the country’s stock market watchdog, to ask it to shut down the market to prevent the market’s 2008 free fall crisis.

However, as the domestic stock market limps along, many retail investors are now looking for signs of encouragement, with just a handful of investors watching SABS’s board compared to hundreds some years ago. At a Tan Viet Securities Incorporated (TVSI) branch, on October 19 just one retail investor kept vigil at the electronic board.

“Current investors must be brave ones, the final fighters,” Nguyen Duy Hung, chairman of Saigon Securities Incorporated (SSI), a leading brokerage house. Vietnam’s VN-Index traded low at around the 400 point level last week, compared to 1,173 points in 2007 and 234 points in early 2009, after witnessing many ups and downs during the last four years. Many investors, including institutional ones, have thought of giving up stock trading.

Executives with cash rich Kim Long Securities (KLS) have been stepping out of the market to invest in property and other investment sectors. However, due to several reasons, KLS stayed in the market but has not traded heavily.

Pham Thanh Tung, Tri Viet Securities Company’s (TVSC) chairman, said he would wait until 2012 to see how the market pans out before making any decisions. “According to my research, Vietnam’s bearish stock market will last four to five years and I will wait as the bright days are to shine ahead. I will wait until 2012. That’s the hope,” said Tung.

Duong Hong Ha, TVSC chief analyst, said many investors were still looking for investment advice amid the gloom. “TVSC plans to do something to attract retail investors back to the market again. The investors might come from other brokerages but the important thing is that their appearances at our firm are positive,” said Ha.