Vietnam benchmark VN-Index loses 6.24% following Trump’s new tariff announcement

Vietnam’s stock market experienced one of its sharpest falls in history, with the benchmark VN-Index losing 82.28 points, or 6.24%, to 1,235.55 and up to 505 stocks declining in the morning session of Thursday.

The plunge came after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he will levy a 46% duty on imports from Vietnam, effective April 9 (link to the announcement).

The trading volume on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), represented by the VN-Index, hit VND31.24 trillion ($1.21 billion), with only eight tickers gaining.

Among the losers, up to 175 hit their floor prices, including eight in the VN30 basket, namely MSN of Masan Group, MWG of Mobile World, BCM of industrial developer Becamex, BVH of Bao Viet Holdings, GVR of Vietnam Rubber Group, VRE of Vincom Retail, SHB of Saigon-Hanoi Bank, and TPB of TPBank.

L10 of Lilama 10 JSC, which operates in the field of steel structure and equipment manufacturing, was the only stock to buck the trend, hitting its ceiling price of VND23,150.

Some other tickers such as DTL of Dai Thien Loc JSC, YBM of Yen Bai Industry Mineral JSC, and TCR of Taicera Enterprise Company, maintained an increase of over 5%.

In the morning, foreign investors continued to offload Vietnamese stocks with a net selling value of nearly VND1.9 trillion ($73.6 million), the highest in nearly three months.

They mainly net sold large caps like TPB (over 22 million shares), MBB of MBBank (more than 15.5 million shares), SSI of Saigon Securities, MWG and SHB.

Vietnamese experts expect that the VN-Index will soon find its balance point. When the major index drops sharply or enters an oversold zone, it creates buying opportunities for medium- and long-term perspectives, they said.