The age-old concept "the customer is king" is becoming more visible in the Vietnamese stock market, where more and more securities firms are aggressively lowering or even eliminating transaction fees to attract and retain customers.

This zone acts as a critical threshold for market stability, providing some respite amidst the prevailing volatility.

More than 163,000 new stock trader accounts were created during March this year, an increase of over 50,000 accounts compared to January, marking March the month with the most accounts created in the last six months.

The stock market capitalisation on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) reached over 5.22 quadrillion VND (208.5 million USD) in March of this year, marking a 3.1% increase from February and a substantial 23.1% increase from the end of 2023.

The company is completing procedures with the information security management agency to officially connect with the two stock exchanges, expected to be completed today.

Vietnam remains in the watch list for a possible reclassification from frontier to secondary emerging market status, according to FTSE Russel’s Country Classification review in March.

As they have a proven track record of complying with payment obligations, implementing a non-100 per cent pre-funding trading mechanism for this group helps mitigate risks.

The online securities trading system at VNDirect Securities Company (VNDirect) is likely to have suffered from a data encryption hack for extortion.

The stock market in Vietnam is expected to gain popularity among domestic individual investors due to its accessibility, profit potential, and demographic and income level improvements.

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is seeking opinions on amending several legal provisions to remove various bottlenecks and meet the criteria for stock market upgrades by rating agencies.

VNDirect, the first online trading broker in Vietnam, said on March 25 that it has resolved a cyberattack by an international organisation on its system and has been making efforts to restore the entire system to limit disruptions in transactions.

Vietnam's ambition to elevate its stock market from "frontier" to "emerging" status by 2025 faces two key hurdles, including pre-trade margin requirements for foreign investors and foreign ownership ratios in certain sectors.

The Vietnamese stock market is attracting billions of dollars, though the gold market is  hot with SJC gold prices soaring, while the dong/dollar exchange rate has hit new peaks and the central bank has withdrawn cash from circulation.

Vietnam stocks are among the best performers in Southeast Asia to start 2024, and the VanEck Vietnam ETF (VNM) is participating in the rally, reported the US’s etftrends.com on March 19.

The domestic stock market managed to set a weekly gain despite strong fluctuations last week.

The upgrading of the Vietnamese stock market to an emerging market has been long awaited by investors.

Dragon Capital, the manager of the two largest ETFs, has experienced strong capital outflows since the beginning of 2024, totalling over VNĐ2 trillion.

The stock market of Vietnam is now a magnet that attracts big cash inflow amid low deposit interest rates and high expectations that the market will be upgraded from frontier to emerging.

Under conditions where various factors converge - low interest rates, stable macroeconomic conditions, and flourishing profitability of listed companies - the stock market is expected to sustain its appeal to large capital inflows in the coming time.

The HCM City Stock Exchange (HOSE) experienced an eventful period under the "reign" of former director Le Hai Tra with the case of FLC Group and its owner Trinh Van Quyet manipulating the stock market, and HOSE’s leaders abusing power.