Another day, another surge for the Market Vectors Vietnam ETF (NYSEArca: VNM). After the benchmark VN Index touched a three-and-half year high Thursday, VNM climbed 4.7% on strong volume.
The lone Vietnam ETF is higher by 5% Friday on volume that is already more than five times the daily average. Speaking of volume, traders have been racing into VNM in recent days. Turnover in the ETF was 285,000 shares Tues before leaping to 819,300 shares Wednesday and then onto 1.23 million Thursday. At this writing, VNM’s Friday volume is over 1.05 million.
International investors bought a net $9.2 million of Vietnamese shares yesterday, a 19th day of purchases, the longest such streak since October and purchased $23.2 million of shares this week through Thursday, the biggest week of purchases since the period ended Dec. 20, according to Bloomberg.
The VN Index is on an 11-session winning streak as buyers have embraced Vietnam’s blue chips such as Petrovietnam Technical Services, Petrovietnam Fertilizer & Chemical, Petrovietnam Drilling And Well Services and Hoa Phat Group. [Blue Chips Boost Vietnam ETF]
Earlier this month, ETF Trends reported that VNM was poised to rally on news that the Southeast Asian nation has increased the foreign ownership limit in its banks.
Although plans by Vietnamese policymakers and the central bank to lift foreign ownership limits are widely known and over a year old, the news is nonetheless good for VNM because the ETF allocates nearly 36% of its weight to the financial services sector. Several of the ETF’s top-10 holdings are bank stocks. VNM is up 13% since that article was published on Jan. 7. [Vietnam ETF Could Get a Lift from Bank Ownership News]
Nguyen Tuan, deputy manager at An Binh Securities, expects the VN index to further expand in the short-term due to favorable earnings from large-caps, Reuters reports.
VNM’s top sectors include financials 35.9%, energy 24.0% and industrials 12.8%. The ETF includes about 25% in larger names, with 4.4% in mega-caps and 20.8% in large-capitalization stocks, followed by 47.9% in mid-caps and 24% in small-caps.
Market Vectors Vietnam ETF
