Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Investors arestruggling to work out where to invest in the HNX30, which  tracks theperformance of the 30 largest stocks on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) bymarket capitalisation and trading liquidity.

Launched in 2012, the HNX30 was expected tobecome a reference index, but after more than six years, it has not been ableto escape the “shadow” of the benchmark VN30 Index.

The VN30 Index tracks the performance of the 30largest stocks on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange.

Among the 30 stocks in the HNX30 basket, few ofthem have attracted investors. Prices of some stocks are even hovering aroundjust 1,000 VND per share. The capitalisation of these stocks is usually modest.The total market capitalisation of the stocks in the HNX30 basket as ofNovember 21 was only 116.6 trillion VND, while the figure for the VN30 basketreached more than 1.89 quadrillion VND.

When mentioning the HNX30, investors usuallythink of major stocks such as Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB),Viscostone Joint Stock Company (VCS), PetroVietnam Technical ServicesCorporation (PVS) and Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB). In termsof market capitalisation, ACB ranks only 27th in the market and even lower thansome shares trading on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM).

Investors usually focus on liquidity, but inNovember, the total trading volume on the HNX30 only reached 470 millionshares, equivalent to 8.1 trillion VND, while the figures for the VN30 basketwere 1.15 billion shares, worth 41.9 trillion VND.

Compared to HNX30, the VN30 has much larger andmore effective businesses.

In the third quarter of this year, total revenuefrom businesses in the VN30 basket reached nearly 238 trillion VND, up 16 percentyear-on-year. After-tax profit reached 27.2 trillion VND, up 15.5 percentyear-on-year.

Meanwhile, the total revenue of those in theHNX30 reached only 28 trillion
VND, up 6.6 percent over the same period last year. After-tax profit reached 3.6trillion VND, equivalent to only 13 percent of the total profit of firms in theVN30.

In Q3, 10 enterprises in the VN30 had post-taxprofit of over 1 trillion VND, but only one in the HNX30 group did.

Total assets of the 30 businesses in the VN30 asof September 30 reached 4.2 quadrillion VND, 5.4 times higher than the 772.5trillion VND on the HNX30.

It is clear the Hanoi Stock Exchange needs certainadjustments to improve the quality of stocks trading on the bourse in generaland those on the HNX30 basket in particular.

Nguyen Duc Huan, Director of the HNX TradingSystem Department, said the HNX had been working on improving the quality ofstocks trading on the bourse to attract investors. It was guiding firms tofollow market regulations, standards on listing, training and informationdisclosure so that investors had sufficient information to make decisionsbefore investing.

Every year, the HNX assessed the quality offirms’ information disclosure and corporate governance to encourage enterprisesto improve transparency, Huan said.

The HNX was studying new orders and new tradingmethods. It would collect the opinions of market players and consider theappropriate time for implementation of these methods, Huan said.-VNS/VNA