An investor looks at stock prices on a smartphone at a brokerage in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran
Vietnam’s benchmark VN-Index dropped 88 points for the first time in history, with 517 ticker closing in the red, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a global reciprocal tariff scheme on all trade partners.
The index closed 6.68% lower, close to the 7% cap set by regulators. 263 tickers hit floor price.
It is now at the lowest since Jan. 14.
Trading on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange doubled to VND39.63 trillion (US$1.54 billion).
The VN-30 basket, comprising the 30 largest capped stocks, saw all tickers falling, 28 of them hitting floor price.
VNM of dairy giant Vinamilk closed 6.6% lower, while SSB of SeABank ended with a 2.6% drop.
Foreign investors were net sellers to the tune of VND3.7 trillion, mostly selling MBB of lender MB and TPB of private TPBank.
The HNX-Index for stocks on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, home to mid and small caps, plummeted by 7.22%, while the UPCoM-Index for the Unlisted Public Companies Market went down 8.17%.
Globally stocks dived on Thursday and investors scrambled for the safety of bonds, gold and the yen, fearing new U.S. tariffs have intensified a trade war threatening to tip the world into recession, Reuters reported.
Nasdaq futures dropped 3.2%, European futures were down nearly 2% and the Nikkei’s 3% fall in Tokyo – touching eight-month lows – led heavy losses across Asia.
