New domestic securities accounts drop to 40,000 in March

Domestic investors opened 39,552 new securities accounts in March, down more than 24,300 accounts compared to the previous month and only slightly above the 30-month record-low recorded in January this year.

In March, individual investors opened 39,428 new accounts and institutions opened 124, according to data from the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD).

As of end-March, the total number of individual investor accounts in the country reached approximately 6.98 million accounts, equivalent to about 7% of the population.

The decrease in the number of new accounts also led to increasingly gloomy transactions. The average order-matching transaction value on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) decreased for three consecutive months to less than VND8 trillion ($341.2 million) per session in March.

However, liquidity has shown signs of improvement in the few recent sessions with the matching value on the HoSE regularly remaining above VND10 trillion ($426.5 million) since the beginning of April.

Interest rate cuts are expected to continue to support cash flow into the stock market. In less than a month, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has reduced operating interest rates twice. After the SBV's adjustments, deposit and lending interest rates have fallen, and banks' liquidity has improved. Pyn Elite Fund said it expects this trend to continue with deposit interest rates returning to a more normal level at around 5-6% in the third quarter this year.

On the HoSE, foreign investors have net sold in four out of five sessions since the beginning of April with a total value of nearly VND750 billion ($31.99 million).

In March, foreign investors net bought nearly VND2.8 trillion ($119.42 million) mainly thanks to motivation from the fifth additional capital raising phase of Fubon ETF and VNM ETF's index conversions.