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Stocks may climb by year-end, Vietnam Lotus Fund says
The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange may gain about 10 percent by the year’s end, buoyed by strong earnings and improving global sentiment, Vietnam Lotus Fund Ltd. said.
The country’s benchmark VN-Index may reach 475, from a previous forecast of 425, Kevin Snowball, chief executive of PXP Vietnam Asset Management, which manages the Dublin-listed fund, wrote in a note to investors.
Global sentiment is improving and investors are starting to focus on earnings of Vietnam Dairy Products Joint-Stock Co., or Vinamilk, and Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint-Stock Bank, known as Sacombank,
Snowball said. The two Ho Chi Minh City-based companies make up almost 14 percent of the VN-Index, which has gained 35.8 percent year-to-date.
“We have seen some decent results, in companies like Sacombank and Vinamilk,” Snowball said in a telephone interview Friday. “There are a lot of positives out there now. The market may actually go beyond 475, but I think it will settle there around the end of the year.”
The index fell 1.1 percent to close at 428.67 Friday.
Vinamilk on July 8 reported first-half pretax profit of VND1.15 trillion (US$64.6 million), or 69 percent of its full- year target. Shares in Vietnam’s biggest maker of dairy products rose 16.3 percent since the announcement. They fell 5 percent to VND114,000 Friday.
Sacombank last week reported pretax profit of VND905 billion for the first six months.
Gains in the index may be hampered by listings of Bao Viet Holdings, Joint-Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, and Vietnam Joint-Stock Commercial Bank for Industry & Trade, in the past month, according to the note.
“All this bullishness only translates into an 11.8 percent increase in our year-end target but we are factoring in a drag caused by the likely limited upside of the three recent listings,” Snowball wrote.
thanhnien, Bloomberg
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