VietNamNet Bridge – With the weak resistance and the lack of transparency,
the Vietnamese finance market would be shaky on any bad piece of news.
On February 21, 2013, the finance market rocked back and forth on the
information that President of the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam
(BIDV) Tran Bac Ha was arrested.
However, this was not the first time the finance market suffered from the false
rumors. The electronic boards at securities trading floors many times turned
red, showing the sharp falls of the stock prices after false rumors were spread
out. The liquidity of some banks was threatened just because of wrong
information about the arrest of the banks’ managers.
The rumors were mostly aimed at the VIPs, who are the managers of big banks or
big companies which list their shares on the stock market. Since they are the
influential names in the business circle, any news relating to them would catch
the special attention from the public and cause big changes in the market.
Some months ago, rumors were spread out that some senior executives of Masan
(consumer goods manufacturer), Sacombank, ACB or Eximbank were arrested for the
“wrongdoings in economic management.” These then led to the plunge of the prices
of the companies’ shares, which were the blue-chips in the market, which was a
storm in the business circle.
Most recently, a similar scenario took place with BIDV, one of the biggest
commercial banks in Vietnam with the information about the arrest of BIDV’s
President Tran Bac Ha.
Ha then had to turn up before the public to prove that he is safe and innocent.
However, there was enough time for the wrong information to cause big damages to
the finance market.
The manager of a HCM City based bank said he was also the victim of a false
rumor in August 2012. He said it was clear about the purpose and motive of those
who deliberately spread out the rumors.
They started rumors to make investors puzzled and prompt them to bargain away
some kinds of shares or run away from the market.
“They tried to collect some kinds of shares at low prices. Therefore, they
spared the wrong news that the shares became less valuable due to the arrest of
the managers of the companies,” he explained.
“They could pocket hundreds of billions of dong, or trillions of dong from every
campaign of spreading false rumors,” he said.
The businessman went on to say that the Vietnamese market has been led by the
rumors, because it still lacks the transparency.
“In such a young and fragile market like Vietnam, it is very easy to conduct the
behavior to control the market prices to seek for profit,” he commented.
Alan Phan, former President of Viasa Hong Kong investment fund, also said that
the Vietnamese market has been easily driven by rumors. In the US, false rumors
could exist 10 minutes only, because they would be clarified by the watchdog
agencies immediately. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the rumor about President Tran Bac
Ha could “rule the roost “for two days.
In Vietnam, the rumors about the arrests of VIPs can easily cause a chaos on the
market. Meanwhile, in developed economies, the rumors of this kind have become
no more useful. This has been explained by the fact that the resistance of the
national economy remains weak.
In fact, rumors exist in every market. However, the consequences they cause in
the markets with high transparency would always be smaller than that in the
markets with low transparency.
VNE