HOSE: THE EXPANDING POWERHOUSE OF VIETNAM’S CAPITAL MARKETS

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange is no longer a “frontier” trading floor on the edge of global finance. It is now a USD 180–200 billion marketplace that concentrates roughly three-quarters of Vietnam’s total stock-market value and sits at the center of the country’s growth story.

At the end of 2023, Vietnam’s combined market capitalization was about USD 240 billion, of which USD 186 billion was listed on HOSE alone. By early 2024, HOSE’s domestic market cap hovered around USD 189 billion, placing it among the larger exchanges in Asia’s emerging universe

At the macro level, the stock market now equals 60–70% of Vietnam’s GDP, depending on the reference year and data source, up from barely 12–13% in the late 2000s.  This expansion has turned HOSE into a daily barometer of the economy: when investors re-price listed companies, they are indirectly re-pricing Vietnam’s future growth.

Institutional Architecture and Governance Evolution

HOSE’s institutional journey reflects Vietnam’s gradual financial opening. The exchange started in 2000 as the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Trading Center, listing only two equities. Over the next twenty years, it developed into a full stock exchange and, after the 2021 restructuring, became a subsidiary of Vietnam Exchange (VNX) alongside the Hanoi Stock Exchange. This holding structure enables the Ministry of Finance and the State Securities Commission to coordinate rules, upgrade systems, and harmonize listing and disclosure standards nationwide.

On the balance sheet, HOSE itself is a financially strong institution. According to the VNBIS company report, the exchange generated about USD 109.8 million in revenue and USD 69.9 million in profit in 2024, with no interest-bearing debt and equity of roughly USD 63.7 million. These are profitability levels more typical of a lean private platform than of a state-invested utility, and they give HOSE the resources to keep upgrading its technology and risk-management infrastructure.

A Broad and Expanding Marketplace of Securities

From those first two listings, HOSE now carries around 400 listed securities with a market capitalization of roughly USD 219 billion as of March 2025, including large-cap banks, property developers, consumer brands, and industrial exporters. 

Liquidity has deepened alongside this expansion. In mid-2024, average daily trading on Vietnam’s stock market reached about VND 16.8 trillion (roughly USD 700 million) in value and more than 630 million shares in volume, with the majority of that activity concentrated on HOSE.  Retail participation has exploded as exploded: by 2024, Vietnam counted over 7.1 million securities trading accounts, meaning that close to 7–8% of the population has some exposure to the stock market. 

Put simply: this is no longer a thin, illiquid frontier market. It is a busy exchange where orders from domestic individuals and global funds collide every trading day.

Largest Corporations and Their Influence

Look at the VN-Index, and you see Vietnam’s growth model in miniature. Banks listed on HOSE intermediate credit across the economy and now dominate both index weightings and daily turnover. Real-estate majors track the fortunes of urbanization, land prices, and infrastructure spending. Consumer champions convert rising incomes into earnings growth, while technology and manufacturing leaders reflect Vietnam’s shift into electronics, components, and higher-value exports. 

Collectively, HOSE blue chips account for the majority of Vietnam’s total market capitalization and a large share of corporate tax contributions. When their quarterly results surprise to the upside, foreign capital flows in; when they disappoint, risk appetite for the entire country can fade within days. In that sense, HOSE behaves much more like a semi-developed market where a stable core of large caps anchors long-term investor confidence.

The Daily Work Behind an Orderly Market

Behind each flashing price tick is a surprisingly complex organization. HOSE is responsible for:

• vetting and supervising listings
• real-time trading surveillance and enforcement
• coordinating information disclosure with listed issuers
• managing indices, market data, and trading halts
• running investor-education initiatives and product-development projects

The VNBIS report highlights that operating expenses are dominated by surveillance, IT, and regulatory-compliance costs—exactly the areas that must scale as trading volumes grow. Despite that, revenue has outpaced costs, which is why HOSE’s profit rose nearly 20% year on year in 2024, even as it invested more heavily in systems and staffing. 

The result is an institution that quietly underwrites market integrity: retail traders see only their order books and charts, but it is HOSE’s surveillance and rule-enforcement machinery that keeps manipulation and disorder in check.

Financial Strength and the Economics of a Near-Monopoly Exchange

As the main equity venue in a fast-growing economy, HOSE benefits from strong operating leverage. When Vietnam’s GDP grew 7.09% in 2024 to about USD 476 billion, corporate earnings and investor activity climbed alongside.  That translated into higher listing fees, trading fees, and data revenues for the exchange itself.

Because HOSE carries no financial debt and maintains a relatively light asset base (total assets of around USD 90 million), its return on equity is exceptionally high for a state-linked enterprise. Every incremental dong of trading value flows disproportionately into the bottom line. This economic structure gives HOSE both the incentive and the means to keep championing market growth and product innovation.

Market Capitalization and Vietnam’s Future Scale

Vietnam’s stock-market capitalization has multiplied many times over the past decade. By late 2023, total market value reached roughly VND 6 quadrillion (USD 246–250 billion), about 60–62% of GDP, with HOSE accounting for the lion’s share.  In 2024, capitalization climbed further to nearly VND 7.2 quadrillion (about USD 288 billion), a year-on-year increase of 21.2%. 

Looking forward, two forces could dramatically expand this scale. The first is domestic: continued privatization of state-owned enterprises and new listings by large private groups (such as major consumer and utility companies migrating from UPCoM to HOSE). The second is global: the series of index upgrades now underway.

FTSE Russell has already confirmed that Vietnam will be raised from frontier to secondary emerging market status, with passive inflows estimated at USD 1–1.5 billion and the potential for much more from active investors over time.  Analysts see this as a stepping stone toward eventual MSCI Emerging Market inclusion, which could unlock another USD 3–5 billion in benchmark-driven capital. 

If those scenarios materialize, Vietnam’s total market cap and, HOSE’s in particular, could move closer to the 80–90% of GDP range seen in more mature emerging markets.

Market Structure, Growth Dynamics, and Strategic Influence

HOSE is not just a trading venue; it is a capital-formation machine. New listings and follow-on offerings have raised billions of dollars for bank recapitalization, real-estate projects, renewable-energy capacity, logistics, and manufacturing expansion. Its indices serve as benchmarks for local mutual funds, pension-linked products, and international ETFs that track Vietnam. 

The rise of retail investors has been particularly striking. With millions of new accounts opened since 2020, Vietnam has one of the highest growth rates of retail participation in Asia.  This wave has injected liquidity and volatility in equal measure: it creates vibrant trading conditions but also increases the risk of herd behavior, speculative bubbles, and social-media-driven runs.

Challenges in Technology, Integrity, and Global Integration

The exchange’s successes have not come without stress points. Capacity overloads in earlier years and the delayed implementation of the KRX trading system highlighted how quickly Vietnam had outgrown its original market infrastructure.  The move to a more modern, South Korea–derived system is essential to support new products (such as intraday trading features and more sophisticated derivatives) and to meet the operational standards of global index providers.

Market integrity remains a constant challenge. Enforcement actions and stricter disclosure rules have been stepped up as the authorities respond to cases of price manipulation, insider trading, and misleading information.  For foreign investors considering larger allocations after the FTSE upgrade, the robustness of this enforcement regime will be as important as any trading-hour tweak or foreign-ownership reform.

The Strategic Future of Vietnam’s Most Important Exchange

HOSE sits at the intersection of three major trends: Vietnam’s strong real economy growth, the rapid financialization of its households, and a structural re-rating by global capital. Its financial statements show a profitable, cash-rich institution capable of reinvesting in technology and supervision. 

In the coming decade, we can reasonably expect:

• a larger and more diverse listed universe as big private groups and SOEs join the market
• deeper liquidity from both domestic savers and foreign institutions
• more complex products, including additional ETFs, structured products, and a bigger derivatives market
• higher governance and disclosure standards as index upgrades impose stricter criteria

Vietnam’s leading corporations already use HOSE as their primary platform to attract capital and international attention. As the exchange transitions from frontier status to a recognized emerging-market platform, it will not only reflect Vietnam’s economic progress but also actively shape it by channeling savings into productive risks, disciplining corporate behavior through market pricing, and linking the country’s growth story to global portfolios.