In 2008, the world economy saw a large recession on the worldwide scale due to the negative influences on the global financial and economic crisis. In the first few months of 2008, world economies faced sky high price increases, which led to the chain of bankruptcy of financial institutions, frozen credit market. Many investors sold off their stock portfolios and looked for less risky assets. MSCI index, the index of emerging economies stocks fell by 60% relative to its peak in Oct, 2007, of which Ukraine index fell by 80%, Rumanian and Bulgarian indices by 75%, Vietnam, China, and India indices by 60%. Although we saw many involvements of most governments and central banks in the financial systems and the economies ( “ money pump”, “ nationalization”, “rescue package”) in the final months of 2008, we expected to see further difficulties to the world economy in 2009, especially the stock markets.
The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), in its report, ‘Vietnam Monitor’ issued in January 2009, predicted that 2009 would be another difficult year for the regional market in general, and Vietnam’s market in particular. HSBC predicted that the VN Index will be at 300 points by the end of the year and believed that Vietnam’s stock market has become smaller which does not catch the attention from foreign investors as it did in the past. In 2008, VN Index dropped by 69%, the sharpest fall among the stock markets in Asia. MSCI of Asian market, not including Japan, saw a smaller decrease by 53% in the last year. In the last six weeks of 2008, the MSCI’s markets recovered by 23% while Vietnam’s stock market decreased by 6%.HSBC’s experts believe that Vietnam’s stocks have been weeded out from the investment portfolios of foreign institutional investors. There is no Vietnamese listing company with the market capitalization value of over US $1billion of which foreign investors can