Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange Research Articles

Applying the Z-Score Model to Predict Corporate Financial Distress: An Empirical Research on the Listed Firms in Vietnam Stock Market

Assessing the risk of financial distress is an important component of effective management because it helps companies make right financial decisions, avoid potential risks and improve business operations. This study provides more empirical evidence on the role of the Z-Score model in predicting financial distress of companies in emerging markets like Vietnam. This research paper uses data from 30 companies that delisted on UPCOM due to financial distress and 30 companies with Z-score greater than 4.35 on Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE) for 5 years from 2018 to 2022, corresponding to 300 observations. The selected companies have enough audited financial statement data during the research period which are collected from websites such as cafef.vn, vietstock.vn, and websites with data on companies’ financial statements. The financial factors are taken from the balance sheet and income statement by the authors to calculate the Z-Score. The authors use the Independent-samples T-test with data collected delisted companies due to financial distress and stably listed firms on the Vietnam Stock Market to test whether there is a difference in Z-score and independent variables in the Z-score model between these two groups of companies. The research results show that, there is a significant difference in the Z-score and the factors in the Z-Score model between the group of listed companies and the group of delisted companies, and between companies with low level of financial distress and those with high level of financial distress. From the findings obtained, the authors have made suggestions and recommendations for relevant parties such as the State Securities Commission of Vietnam, users of financial statements, and companies in order to contribute to preventing and limiting the risk of corporate financial distress in the most effective way.

Impact of Information Disclosure on Financial Risks of Listed Real Estate Companies in Vietnam

The study analyzes the impact of disclosure on the financial risks of real estate development companies. The data was collected from the annual reports and financial statements of 35 listed companies on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) and the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) from 2019 to 2021. The results show that more information disclosure leads to lower financial risks for companies besides other firm-specific factors. According to the regression results of the financial risk model, variables such as return on sales (ROS), return on total assets (ROA), and inventory turnover (IT) are not significantly statistical for the financial risk dependent variable (FR). The variables of firm size (SIZE), age of the firm (AGE), the degree of financial leverage (DFL) and basic profitability (BEP), are all positively related to risk. The remaining 5 variables of information disclosure (DS), debt-to-total assets (TD), short-term solvency (CR), GDP growth rate (GDPg), and inflation (IR) are negatively related to financial risk. Our results emphasize the importance of disclosure and make several implications for companies.

Corporate Governance, Firm Characteristics and Firm Performance: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam.

The purpose of this research was to examine how corporate governance methods relate to the performance of companies in Vietnam. The study used a dataset of 85 manufacturing firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange (HOSE) and applied Random-Effect Model (REM) and the Feasible Generalized Least Squares Model (FGLS) method. We found that the performance of a firm is positively influenced by a CEO's age, and gender diversity in boards of directors (BOD). However, firm size and board size have a negative impact on firm performance. The research recommends that companies should not increase board size. Additionally, promoting women executives in the boardroom can bring cultural diversity benefits and reduce information asymmetry. Based on the findings, the research proposes several recommendations for companies and managers to improve performance and reduce the negative effects of poor governance mechanisms.

Effectiveness of OLS and SVR in Return Prediction: Fama-French Three-factor Model and CAPM Framework

This study aims to apply the Support Vector Regression (SVR) algorithm under the Fama-French 3-factor model (FF3) theoretical framework to predict the return of a diversified portfolio. Data was collected on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) from 2010 to 2022 by month, with 145 observations. Firstly, the study compared the two theoretical models, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and FF3, and investigated that FF3 explains volatility in portfolio returns better than CAPM. Furthermore, to forecast the return rate, the study applied Ordinary Least Square (OLS) for CAPM and FF3 and SVR methods for CAPM and FF3. This research used the roll window method to train-test the model and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) to evaluate the model’s accuracy. An F test was used to compare the performance of these four models. As a result, the FF3 model uses the SVR algorithm more efficiently than the OLS and CAPM.

THE EFFECTS OF SELECTED FINANCIAL RATIOS ON PROFITABILITY: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF REAL ESTATE FIRMS IN VIETNAM

The paper examines the determinants of profitability of real estate companies by using panel data of Vietnamese listed companies on the Hanoi stock exchange (HNX) and Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange (HOSE) from 2007 to 2020. Profitability ratios are measured by return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). The results indicate that the cost on revenue ratio, debt-to-equity ratio and the crisis and COVID-19 pandemic are negatively correlated with firm profitability. Meanwhile, the sales to current assets ratio, money supply growth rate and economic growth rate (GDPG) provide a positive correlation with profitability. We find that firm size and equity to total assets have positive effects on ROA, while there is a negative relationship between equity to total assets and ROE, and not enough evidence to conclude how firm size affects ROE. The study thereby provides suggestions and recommendations for the administrators of the government, real estate companies and investors in Vietnam.

Earnings Management and New Listings: Evidence from Vietnam

Earnings management around corporate events has been widely discussed in literature review which has shown mixed results. Furthermore, prior studies have extensively focused on earnings management around initial public offerings (IPOs) and seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), while less attention has been given to the listing event. Another motivation comes from the context of the undeveloped market. While earnings management has been widely discussed in developed countries, it is still limited in emerging countries in general and in Vietnam in particular, due to the lack of research on this phenomenon and the unique institutional feature and pre-listing profit requirement in Vietnam’s stock market. This research is conducted to investigate the earnings management behaviour around listing event in Vietnam. The sample of this study consists of financial data from 189 newly listed companies on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) for the period of 2009–2017. Four cross-sectional models were used to estimate earnings management, including two total accruals-based models and two current accruals-based models. This research makes important contributions to the body of literature on Vietnam’s stock market. First, this study provides empirical evidence suggesting a greater positive earnings management practice of newly listed firms in current accrual models than those in total accrual models. Second, the results from both parametric and non-parametric test statistics show that HOSE-listed firms present higher levels of earnings management in the year prior to the listing than those in post-listing year and two subsequent years after listing. Finally, new listing requirements in 2012 require the company’s return on equity (ROE) in the most recent year to be at least 5%. However, the paper finds no evidence to suggest that relative to all newly listed firms after the new profit requirement exhibit greater positive earnings management than that of firms listed before the change in pre-listing year.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Individual Industry Sectors: Evidence from Vietnam Stock Exchange

The paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the stock market prices. The vector autoregression model (VAR) has been used in this analysis to survey 341 stocks on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) for the period from January 23, 2020 to December 31, 2020. The empirical results obtained from the analysis of 11 economic sectors suggest that there is a statistically significant impact relationship between COVID-19 and the healthcare and utility industries. Additional findings show a statistically significant negative impact of COVID-19 on the utility share price at lag 1. Analysis of impulse response function (FRF) and forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) show an inverse reaction of utility stock prices to the impact of COVID-19 and a gradual disappearing shock after two steps. Major findings show that there is a clear negative effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on share prices, and the daily increase in the number of confirmed cases, indicate that, in future disease outbreaks, early containment measures and positive responses are necessary conditions for governments and nations to protect stock markets from excessive depreciation. Utility stocks are among the most severely impacted shares on financial exchanges during a pandemic due to the high risk of immediate or irreversible closure of manufacturing lines and poor demand for basic amenities.

Is It Possible to Earn Abnormal Return in an Inefficient Market? An Approach Based on Machine Learning in Stock Trading.

Risk management and stock investment decision-making is an essential topic for investors and fund managers, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The problem becomes easier if the market is efficient, where stock prices fully reflect potential risk. Nevertheless, if the market is not efficient, investors may have an opportunity to find an effective investment method. Vietnam is one of the emerging markets; the efficiency is still weak. Thus, there will be an opportunity for astute investors. This study aims to test the weak-form efficient market and provide a modern approach to investors' decision-making. To achieve that aim, this study uses historical data of stocks in the VN-Index and VN30 portfolio to buy and sell within a one-day period under the rolling window approach to test the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE) through a runs test and to perform stock trading using the support vector machine (SVM) and logistic regression. The buying/selling of stocks is guided by the forecasted outcomes (increase/decrease) of logistic regression and SVM. This study adjusted the return rate in proportion to the risks and compared it with index investments of VN-Index and VN30 to evaluate investment efficiency. The test results dismissed the weak-form efficient-market hypothesis, which opens up many opportunities for short-term traders. This study's primary contribution is to provide a stock trading strategy for short-term investors to maximize trading profits. Because logistic regression and SVM have proven effective trading methods, investors can use them to achieve abnormal returns.

Stock Price Co-movement and Firm’s Ownership Structure in Emerging Market

This study is concerned with the relationship between firm’s ownership structure and the co-movement of the stock return with the market return. Four different types of firm ownership, including managerial ownership, state ownership, foreign ownership, and concentrated ownership, are among the main features of the company’s governance mechanism and have been separately documemented in the previous research to understand their impact on stock price synchronicity. We constructed the regression model, using stock price synchronicity as the dependent variable and the above four components of ownership structure as explanantory variables. The pooled OLS, the fixed effects model, and the random effects are employed to investigate the outcome of the study. Data used in the reserch are of public firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) during the five-year period term from 2015 to 2019. The data sample contains 235 companies from 10 industries with 1135 observations. The results revealed by the fixed effects model, the large ownership and the managerial ownership are found to have adverse effect on the stock price synchronicity, whereas the foreign ownership model is revealed to have positive influence on the stock return co-movement. The effect of the state ownership on the stock price synchronicity is not confirmed.

Shrinkage Model Selection for Portfolio Optimization on Vietnam Stock Market

This paper provides the practical application of a linear shrinkage framework on Vietnam stock market. The cumulative data points observed in this analysis are 468 weeks from January 2011 to December 2019. All the companies listed on Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE), except the companies under two years period from Initial Public Offering (IPO), are considered. The cumulative number of stocks picked is therefore 350 companies. The VNINDEX, which is the Vietnam Stock Index, is used as a reference index for shrinking to a single-index model. The empirical results show that the shrinkage of covariance matrix for portfolio optimization gives the promising results for the investors on Vietnam stock market. The shrinkage method helps the investors to produce the optimal portfolio in the sense of having higher profit with lower levels of risk compared to the portfolio of the traditional SCM method. Moreover, the portfolio turnover of shrinkage method is always kept at low magnitudes, and this makes the shrinkage portfolios save much transaction costs and reduce the liquidity risks in the trading process. In addition, the ability of shrinkage method in making profit is once again confirmed by the Alpha coefficient that achieves a high positive value.

Does Trade Credit Spur Firm Performance? A Case Study in Vietnam

Purpose: The paper aims to examine the impacts of trade credit on firm performance in Vietnam, representing a small transition economy with high openness environment. Design/Methodology/Aproach: Generalized least squares method of estimation was used to test the hypotheses on a sample of 279 companies listed on Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) during the 2012-2018 period, after the global financial crisis. Findings: The research findings support the positive influences of trade credit on firm performance of large businesses through both accounts receivable and trade payables and reversal effects on small business. These results show the advantages of large-scale companies own over the smaller ones in acquiring financing resources and imposing market power on their business partners, which help them optimize the benefits of trade credit. Practical implications: Research results indicate that corporates should increase their business scale to capitalize on the benefits of trade credit, and small-scale businesses should control the cost of trade credit. Originality/Value: The paper contributes to the literature in three main ways. Firstly, our exclusive offers new insights into understanding the behavior of Vietnamese firms, and this would give implications for transition economies in the world. Secondly, the study was carried out in the post-crisis period, with regulatory changes in banking management. Thirdly, this research compensates for the lack of empirical evidence in this field of research.

The Determinants of Environmental Information Disclosure in Vietnam Listed Companies

Environmental pollution and climate change in Vietnam are now becoming a major concern. This situation is increasing the pressure on the companies to improve their social responsibility in production and business activities and disclose the environmental information to meet the requirements of stakeholders. This study investigates the internal and external factors of the company that affects the environmental information disclosure of listed companies on the Vietnam stock market as business sector, firm size, corporate manager perceptions, profitability, financial leverage, community pressure, pressures from stakeholders, government pressure influencing environmental information disclosure. Analytical data collected through the survey of 120 listed companies on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE). By testing Cronbach's Alpha, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and logistic regression analysis, the results of the study show that the level of environmental information disclosure of listed companies on the stock market in Vietnam depends heavily on government regulations, followed by the pressure from stakeholders, community pressure, views of business managers, companies size, business sector, and particularly profitability and financial leverage factors that have a negative relationship with environmental information disclosure.

Impact of Financial Leverage, Firm Performance on Systemetic Risks in Developing Countries: An Analysis on Vietnamese Listed Firm

In this paper, we study the link between financial leverage, firm performance on the systemetic risks in developing countries, especially in the case of a developing country in Asia like Vietnam. Although there are many papers on this topic, the difference between them and this paper is that we have conducted the study in Vietnam that have not yet been studied together. The data used were collected from Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) and Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) in the period of 2013 – 2018. Based on the results of the panel data regression, the study can demonstrate that a firm used more current assets can positively impact on systemetic risk. Furthermore, a firm owned more performance can certainly decrease systemetic risk. Regarding firm size, and financial leverage, the results demonstrate that firm size, and financial leverage are insignificantly correlated with systematic risk.

Oil price and firm profitability: evidence from Vietnamese stock market

Although many prior studies show that oil price affects negatively macroeconomic environment and stock prices, there are few studies on the impact of oil price on firm profitability. This paper posits that oil price tends to affect firm profitability negatively via increases in production costs and negative changes in the macroeconomic environment. As a transition economy, Vietnam has been gradually integrated into the world economy and affected by international economic shocks. Therefore, Vietnam is a potential laboratory to investigate the effect of oil price as an exogenous factor on firm profitability. Using a sample of 6,960 observations from 951 firms listed in Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) and Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) between 2005 and 2016, we find supporting evidence for the negative impact of oil price on firm profitability.

The Determinants of the Credit Risk in Developing Countries: An Empirical Study on Vietnamese Listed Banking Sector

The research study is focusing on the determinants of credit risk in developing countries, Vietnam is one the most fastest growing economies in the world with the rate of roughtly 7 percent during the period of1986 – 2018. The bank system in the country has widely been expanded both quantity and quality. Using the secondary data in the period of 2009 – 2018 retrieving from Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE), Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), and General Statistics Office with the theoretical framework of bank’s non-performance loans (so-called credit risk), the results demonstrate that that real GDP growth rate is significantly and negatively correlated with the credit risk in the bank system. Loan growth in the current year and a previous year can negatively generate non-performing loans in this year. In addition, a larger bank can perfectly have a lower level of bankruptcy cost and a higher level of growth rate related to a lower level of credit risk. Further, the bad debt, inflation, and net interest margin can positively generate credit risk.

Assessing the level of environmental information disclosure by listed companies on the stock market in Vietnam

The environmental information disclosure of enterprises listed on Vietnam’s stock market has been mandated by the Ministry of Finance of Vietnam according to Circular No. 155/2015/TT_BTC. Therefore, enterprises need to be responsible for announcing and interpreting financial and non-financial information about the environment to meet the needs of the Government and stakeholders. However, the level of environmental information disclosure depends on their business, company characteristics, compliance of the board of management, etc. This paper investigates and assesses the level of environmental information disclosure of the listed companies on the stock market in Vietnam. The study was conducted with 170 listed companies on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) and Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) through descriptive statistics and value testing methods and an in-depth interview. The research results have shown that in Vietnam, the level of enterprises announcing environmental information disclosure is still low. For example, materials and construction industry, food and beverage industry have less than 55% of enterprise disclosing environmental information. At the same time, the enterprises from environmentally sensitive sectors such as materials and construction, electricity, petroleum, gas, chemicals, etc., have more environmental information disclosure than other industries, and the environmental information published only focuses on the environmental debt, the amount of resources consumed, the number of environmental violations, environmental policies and objectives, etc.

On some nonlinear dependence structure in portfolio design

Constructing portfolios with high returns and low risks is always in great demand. Markowitz (1952) utilized correlation coefficients between pairs of stocks to build portfolios satisfying different levels of risk tolerance. The correlation coefficient describes the linear dependence structure between two stocks, but cannot capture a lot of nonlinear independence structures. Therefore, sometimes, portfolio performances are not up to investors' expectations. In this paper, based on the theory of copula by Sklar (see [19]), we investigate several new methods to detect nonlinear dependence structures. These new methods allow us to estimate the density of the portfolio which leads to calculations of some popular risk measurements like the value at risk (VaR) of investment portfolios. As for applications, making use of the listed stocks on the Ho Chi Minh city Stock Exchange (HoSE), some Markowitz optimal portfolios are constructed together with their risk measurements. Apparently, with nonlinear dependence structures, the risk evaluations of some pairs of stocks have noticeable twists. This, in turn, may lead to changes of decisions from investors.

The impact of financial variables on systematic risk – An empirical study in manufacturing industry on Ho Chi Minh stock exchange

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of financial variables on systematic risk, using the panel data of 64 manufacturing companies listed in Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) during the period of 2011-2015. The three models employed are pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Random Effect Model (REM), and Fixed Effects Model (FEM). The results of model tests show that FEM is the most suitable to carry out the analysis. In order to increase the efficiency of the model, the tests for model problems are conducted. The results point to the presence of heteroskedasticity problem in the model; therefore, the modified FEM is used to deal with this issue. Empirical evidence from HOSE indicates that leverage has a significantly positive impact while operating efficiency and profitability show significantly negative impact on systematic risk (beta).

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of financial variables on systematic risk, using the panel data of 64 manufacturing companies listed in Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) during the period of 2011-2015. The three models employed are poo

This research empirically investigates the impacts of three components of organizational culture (Decisiveness, Team orientation, Attention to detail) on service frontliners’ behaviors, represented by organizational commitment and customeroriented behavior (COB) in the airport services in Vietnam. It also estimates the effect of organizational commitment on COB of frontliners. Based on the data collected from 310 frontliners working in several airports, the analyses reveal that two dimensions of organizational culture, “Attention on details” and “Team orientation”, have direct positive influence on COB while all three components have positive influence on the employee’sorganizational commitment which then leads to COB. Theoretical and managerial implications have been discussed accordingly.

Yangon’s New Stock Exchange in Comparative Analysis

In the political sphere, the citizens of Myanmar have witnessed and taken part in an expanding and deepening process of democratization and political liberalization in the past few years. In the economic sphere, changes are also underway that indicate a growth of economic liberalism. One part of that process is a slowly increasing financialization as indicated by the new Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) set to begin trading operations in late 2015. This paper will analyze what this new stock exchange means for the citizens of Myanmar by placing it within a regional comparative analysis of stock markets across Southeast Asia, including the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE), the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), the Lao Securities Exchange (LSX), and the Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX). The main argument is that despite calculable risks in terms of business transparency and national politics, the potentialities for a successful YSX are in place. The main socioeconomic conditions that warrant investment, both from the domestic as well as international perspective are 1) the depth and diversity of Myanmar’s adult population size, 2) Myanmar’s rallying industrial sector, 3) Burmese businesses’ current lack of bank financing, and 4) Burmese citizens’ little-to-no holdings in financial assets as compared to other non-financial wealth holdings. The YSX will not be an overnight success for either domestic Burmese investors or for domestic Burmese enterprises seeking new avenues to finance growth and project investment. However, the systemic socioeconomic conditions are in place for the Yangon Stock Exchange to parallel more closely the experience of the Vietnamese HoSE and HNX than that of the other Indochinese exchanges of LSX and CSX.