Vietnam stocks to see major shift if MSCI adds market to watchlist: SSI chairman

If MSCI places Vietnam’s stock market on its watchlist this year, investors could reasonably expect a more significant transformation over the next five years, as the country now meets most of the index provider’s market accessibility criteria, said chairman of SSI Securities Corporation Nguyen Duy Hung.

In a year-end trading session ahead of the Lunar New Year (starting on February 17), Hung shared a social media post recalling the market in 2020 and outlining his outlook for the future.

The market veteran posted a photo of a red cap bearing the slogan “MAKE VN-Index 1000 AGAIN,” writing that the hat was given to him in October 2020 when the VN-Index stood at around 900 points. Five years later, the benchmark index has doubled, and the prospect of Vietnam’s market upgrade by FTSE Russell is now close, he wrote.

“If MSCI puts Vietnam’s stock market on its upgrade watchlist this year, we have every right to expect a bigger shift over the next five years – higher standards, deeper pools of long-term capital, and better companies being valued more accurately,” Hung noted.

He added that the stock market should be viewed as a vehicle for long-term wealth accumulation rather than short-term trading gains or losses, underscoring his optimistic stance on Vietnam’s equity market outlook.

In October 2025, FTSE Russell officially announced the reclassification of Vietnam’s stock market from frontier to secondary emerging market status, with the change set to take effect on September 21, 2026, subject to an interim review scheduled for March.

The FTSE upgrade, however, is seen as only the starting point, with regulators now targeting inclusion under MSCI classifications.

SSI Research said the next key milestone would be the potential addition of Vietnam to MSCI’s watchlist in June 2026.

Structural tailwinds are increasingly falling into place. Vietnam has met most of MSCI’s market accessibility requirements, supported by the more stable operation of its non-prefunding (NPF) trading mechanism, progress in rolling out a central counterparty clearing (CCP) model, the expansion of hedging and short-selling tools via index futures, improved English-language corporate disclosures, and ongoing efforts to ease foreign ownership limits.

Notably, foreign ownership limits across the market - particularly on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange - improved markedly in 2025 and early 2026, following the inclusion of several large-cap stocks offering 100% foreign ownership room. This has significantly broadened the investable universe for index-tracking funds and enhanced the representativeness and depth of Vietnam’s equity market in global indices.

Remaining challenges are largely linked to the degree of foreign exchange market liberalization, a key criterion in MSCI’s assessment framework. However, this is not considered a decisive bottleneck, as several existing MSCI emerging markets do not fully meet ideal conditions for exchange rate mechanisms and capital flows.

Overall, SSI Research said Vietnam enters 2026 with its strongest structural foundation to date for an MSCI upgrade. The path toward reclassification is no longer merely a long-term aspiration but is increasingly becoming a tangible and trackable objective.