Market Recap February 2023 - Vietnamese equity market retreats in February

The VN-Index (VNI) recorded its sharpest decline in four months. The VNI finished February at 1,024.7 (-7.8% MoM) — its steepest monthly decline in the past four months. The weak performance was driven by 1) high profit-taking pressure after the VNI surged 10% to surpass the resistance level of 1,100 in January, 2) Novaland (NVL) asking bond holders to accept delayed payments, which raised concerns about the risk of defaults by the company, the real estate sector’s outlook and the bad debt situation of the banking system, and 3) a possibly more hawkish Fed to contain continuing high inflation in the US. Since the start of 2023, the VNI has gained 1.8%, outperforming regional markets such as Indonesia’s JCI (-0.1%), the Philippines’ PCOMP (-0.2%) and Thailand’s SET (-2.8%).

All sectors tumbled, except for energy. Diversified financials (-15.1%) was hit the hardest, led by SSI (-15.5%), VND (-18.7%) and VCI (-14.1%). Real estate (-11.8%) was the second biggest laggard mainly due to declines at NVL (-25.4%) and VHM (-18.5%). The real estate sector was followed by the consumer discretionary sector due to sharp declines at MWG (-14.0%) and PNJ (-14.8%). In contrast, the energy sector was the only sector that advanced (+0.4%), which was led by increases at PLX (+1.36%) and PVS (+1.56%).

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