Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the MSc in Finance FINANCE DISSERTATION ON IMPACT OF MACROECONOMIC FACTORS ON VIETNAM STOCK INDEX: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM 2011 TO 2019 LA THI VAN ANH ID No: 19046122 Intake 3 Supervisor: September 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the supervisor of my thesis, Prof. To Kim Ngoc, highly advanced. If it were not for her support, guidance and orientation, I would not be able to complete this study. I would also like to thank all the teachers during the course at the Master of Finance program at the International School of Business, Banking Academy of Vietnam in association with University of the West of England.
The knowledge and insights I received from them greatly assisted me in the process of completing my research. In addition, I would like to send my sincere thanks to the course-mates, who do not hesitate to share ideas, advice as well as encourage me during the time attending this master program Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends, whose encouragement gave me the opportunity to study and get results today. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
3 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. Error! Bookmark not defined. Research Aim and Research Objectives. Brief of Method.
Overview of Stock Market. Brief of Stock Index and VN-Index History. Past Research about Impact of Macroeconomics on Stock Index. Hypotheses Development: Impact of Macroeconomics on VN-Index.
Method and Reasoning Approach. Secondary Data Source. Definition of Variables & Ordinary Least Squares. Key Findings and Theoretical Contributions.
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Improvements. Example of Dataset. SPSS Heteroscedasticity Outputs. 59 4 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1.
Trading Volume in Vietnam Stock Markets from 2015 to 2017. Descriptive Statistics of Data. Error! Bookmark not defined. Pearson Correlation Matrix.
Skewness and Kurtosis Normality Test. Durbin-Watson Test for Autocorrelation. Multiple Regression Model Outputs. Stock Market Capitalization in Vietnam from 2008 to 2019.
VN-Index Historical Data. 28 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In pace with rapid economic growth, the financial market in Vietnam has also been evolving. In early 2000s, the Vietnamese government opened the first two stock exchanges, namely HOSE and HNX. This marked a new era for the domestic financial market.
However, because the Vietnamese stock market is still categorized to be weak form efficient, as such, the stock price and stock index of both stock exchanges, especially VN-Index of HOSE, is heavily influenced by the changes in the macroeconomic conditions. Therefore, understanding the impact of macroeconomic factors on stock market index is very relevant for local investors and policy makers in the context of Vietnam. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between a variety of different macroeconomic factors and VN-Index that represents the stock index of HOSE as the largest stock exchange in Vietnam in terms of market capitalization. The second data are collected within the 9-year period from 2011 to 2019 on the basis of quarter interval, leading to the final dataset consisting of 36 observations.
The results of multiple regression model, which is an extension of the ordinary least squares (OLS), show that GDP growth rate and foreign direct investment (FDI) have a significant and positive impact on increasing VN-Index while interest rate shapes a negative impact on VN-Index. Interestingly, it is also founded in this paper that consumer price index (CPI) and inflation rate are non-significant factors that are actually unrelated to VN-Index. These empirical findings might provide insightful and relevant implications to both local investors and policy makers in Vietnam, especially during this pandemic time which has been witnessing many changes in the Vietnamese stock market. Chapter Introduction This introductory chapter aims to set a sense for this empirical thesis paper.
It focuses on describing the financial context in Vietnam and the establishment and development of the main stock exchange market, namely Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE), to highlight the strong impact of macroeconomic factors on stock index, namely VN-Index that represents the stock index of HOSE. This description pinpoints the major research problem that this study wants to focus on as well as the rationale for conducting this study in order to provide relevant implications to both local investors and policy makers. Based on this rationale, the subsequent part of this chapter formulates the primary research aim and more specific research objectives that this study wishes to accomplish in the end. Contextual Background Stock exchange is the marketplace where various financial instruments, such as stocks or bonds, are issued and traded among issuers, buyers and sellers.
Investing in stock exchange has largely been considered to be a traditional financial investment channel for many investors. However, given the high risk level of the stock exchange environment, investors are interested in how to make accurate prediction of share prices based on different indicators, including information about the macroeconomics (Triyono and Robiyanto, 2017). “Doi Moi” or reform policy in the 1986 has opened the new door to foster the growth of Vietnam’s economy. This openness policy, by focusing on trade and 7 market-oriented economic model, has become the primary driver of the economy of Vietnam over the past decades.
In pace with the rapid economic development and openness policy, the Vietnamese government launched the Ho Chi Minh Securities Trading Center (renamed as Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange – HOSE) and the Hanoi Securities Trading Center (renamed as Hanoi Stock Exchange – HNX) in early 2000s. This opened a new era that has witnessed many changes in the financial trading and equity market in Vietnam. In fact, as can be seen in Figure 1, the stock market capitalization in Vietnam has kept increasing quickly since 2008. Thereby, in 2008, it was only valued at $12.37 billion but in 2019, it increased to $149.82 billion, which made Vietnam become the 26th largest stock marketing in the world in terms of market capitalization, according to the The Global Economy.
As a consequence of this impressive performance, VN-Index, which is the stock index of HOSE, has also remarkably grown in such an adolescent market. Stock Market Capitalization in Vietnam between 2008 and 2019 (in billion dollars) Source: The Global Economy 8 Since two stock exchanges in Vietnam, namely HOSE and HNX, went into operation, it has given new investment channels for many investors and financial experts in Vietnam. In fact, the rapid expansion of stock market as mentioned above in the wave of the economic booming in Vietnam has opened huge opportunities for local investors and financial experts to seize such opportunities during this golden time (Vo, 2017). Nonetheless, on the flipped side of the coin, as Vietnam is still a developing market, meaning that the domestic stock market in Vietnam is subject to high degree of volatility and not efficient (i.
weak form of market efficiency) because the stock prices are not directly and immediately influenced by the market information, any changes in macro-conditions have tremendous effects on the stock prices in Vietnam. Indeed, in a highly efficient market, stock prices are mainly driven by public information (Mobarek and Fiorante, 2014) but since Vietnam is categorized to be weak form efficient, VN- Index is still heavily affected by both historical transaction information (past prices, historic volumes) and only slightly affected by public information. As such, the stock market in Vietnam is of high risk and fluctuations, this then pressures local investors a lot given the great deal of uncertainty in the stock prices. Therefore, local investors demand for more useful information about the stock markets, especially historical information that is related to stock prices, to make accurate investment decisions and to reduce the risk of failure.
In high market efficiency, macroeconomic policies can be comfortably implemented because such policies do not create significant impact on the stock market (i. as stock prices are only the full reflection on all relevant market information). However, in weak market efficiency like Vietnam, macroeconomic 9 changes can generate enormous effect in the stock price (Mobarek and Fiorante, 2014). In particular, in emerging and developing markets, previous research has supported the idea that the performance of stock price is more vulnerable to the macro fluctuations than developed markets (e.
Victor and Kuwornu, 2011; Zakaria and Shamsuddin, 2012). During 2000s when the economy of Vietnam suffered from abnormally high volatility with high interest rate and high inflation rate, macro fluctuations dramatically influenced the stock prices and VN-Index. For example, in February 2009, VN-Index reached its ever lowest bottom of only 235.5 points, which was mainly due to the transmission of 2008 financial crisis consequences on Vietnam economy (Vo and Ellis, 2018). Overall, given the fact that Vietnam stock market suffers from weak form efficiency, the local stock market has high degree of volatility and the stock prices are largely determined by historical data.
As such, it is technically very tough for investors to effectively make prediction for future prices for trading decisions. This means that it is very important and relevant for both investors and policy makers in Vietnam to have a thorough and clear understanding of the impact of past macroeconomic forces, such as interest rate and inflation rate, on the stock prices and stock index in Vietnam in the past because these sorts of “historical” macroeconomic information can be the best predictor of the future stock prices as well as fluctuations in the market, as compared to other technical analytical tools that are often seen in developed markets whose high market efficiency. This then necessitates more urgent empirical research to acquire such knowledge. 10 Although previous research in the area of finance has quite extensively examined the relationships between macroeconomic factors and stock index, such studies have mostly been conducted in developed markets (Al-Tamimi, Alwan, and Abdel Rahman, 2011), while little is known about this linkage in the context of developing and emerging markets like Vietnam.
Also, due to the institutional differences such as regulations, locations, or investment types, it is very hard to replicate the findings from past research being conducted in developed markets to developing markets (Al-Tamimi, Alwan, and Abdel Rahman, 2011). Each market has several own unique features that affect the stock prices and subsequent stock index, which might not be founded in other international marketplaces. In fact, the knowledge of the influences of macroeconomic forces on stock index, namely VN-Index, remains largely scant and unaddressed in the context of the stock market in Vietnam. This requires urgent empirical research to fill this paucity in order to provide empirically sound knowledge that might be very useful and relevant to local investors as mentioned earlier.
Especially, given the outbreak of the COVID-19 and its impact on the Vietnam’s economy (World Bank, 2020), having an up-to-date understanding how macroeconomic factors really influence stock prices and VN-Index in the past is very relevant and timely for local investors in Vietnam during this hard time. Such understanding is really necessary to help mitigate the possibilities of making wrong trade and investment decisions for local investors when the domestic stock markets in Vietnam are now highly fluctuated and full of chaos as a result of the unpredictable changes in the global financial markets caused by the COVID-18 crisis. Research Aim and Research Objectives 11 In accordance with the research problem as pinpointed earlier, the major aim of this empirical research is to understand the linkage between macroeconomic conditions and the Vietnam stock index (i. VN-Index), which represents capitalization-weighted index of all companies being listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stick Exchange as the largest stock exchange market in Vietnam.
In particular, consistent with this major aim, there are the following particular objectives that are set for this study: To review a number of macroeconomic factors that could determine stock market index. To identify significant macroeconomic factors that have affected the Vietnam stock index (i.