About a hundred people fill the chairs on the trading floor, chatting or reading newspapers, glancing only occasionally at the glowing numbers on the board in front of them.
The numbers change slowly, reporting volume of just 3 billion dong (US$200,000) for the day's single-hour trading session.
Trading on communist Vietnam's first stock market -- 2 years old last week -- is a far cry from the heady days of a year ago, when speculators desperate for anticipated profits made it the world's best-performing market for the first six months.
PHOTO: AP
Fortunately, it's also far different from the steep plunge that followed. Falling prices so enraged speculators that they threatened to kill the exchange's director, Tran Dac Sinh.
"There were some death threats. But now I think investors can understand the stock market better," Sinh says. "At that time investors thought I was manipulating the prices. We had to have police assistance."
Regulators say the recent stability of the market, in southern Ho Chi Minh City, is a sign it has already begun to mature, as investors who once believed the exchange would only climb higher no longer view it as a source of risk-free quick gains.
But traders complain that the small number of listed companies -- just 17, less than twice the nine registered brokerage firms -- and tight government trading controls are keeping volume low and limiting the market's role as Vietnam's economy shifts from tight state control to private enterprise.
More than 10,000 people have trading accounts, but only about 400 now trade regularly, brokerage officials estimate. Most know each other from the hour they spend together each day, looking vainly for buyers for stocks that have fallen sharply in price from a year ago.
After debuting at 100 points in July 2000, the market index hit a high of 571.04 on June 25 last year, and now hovers at about 200. The low level of foreign investment has helped it avoid much of the recent carnage on other markets.
Kim, a 43-year-old market player who bought over 100,000 shares at bargain prices shortly after the market opened, watched for months as prices skyrocketed and then plunged, unable to cash in most of his gains.
"It's difficult to sell with such a small number of stocks and traders," says Kim, who gave only one name.
All but one of the 17 listed companies are former state-owned enterprises converted into stock companies. None has used the market yet to issue new stock.
Just five companies were added last year and seven so far this year, despite early promises by the State Security Commission to list as many as 20 each year.
Securities analysts estimate that 50-60 out of Vietnam's 4,000-6,000 joint stock companies meet the listing criteria, but many long-protected state enterprise managers remain leery of public disclosure requirements.
In an attempt to attract more companies, the government is offering tax breaks, lower land rents and preferential access to bank loans to those that list.
It also is proposing a three-year tax exemption on repatriated profits for foreign stock investors.
But dissatisfied investors say tight trading regulations should be relaxed so the exchange can develop freely -- like Communist China's fledging markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen in the early 1990s. Weak Chinese regulatory enforcement and massive speculation caused those markets to expand rapidly, leading to huge price gains -- as well as large losses. China is still paying the price for allowing companies with weak fundamentals and poor management to go public, analysts say.
Vietnamese officials say they want to avoid those mistakes by keeping a tight rein on the Vietnamese market's growth.
Following last year's steep price rises, regulators limited the amount of buy orders that traders could place each day and cut the daily trading band for each stock. That scared off speculators, who began disposing their stocks, sending prices sharply lower.
The exchange has become more stable since the beginning of this year, but many investors remain disappointed.
"The market has not developed as quickly as I expected," said Hai, the brokerage firm head. "At first we expected a very big future, and that the future would come to us very quickly. Maybe it was just our enthusiasm."
Market officials say they're being held back now by cautious regulators in Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, who are reluctant to surrender their control over the fledgling market.
"The biggest problem is how to persuade the regulators in Hanoi to do the process faster," says Sinh. "We have to help everyone understand how a market operates -- the investors as well as the regulators."
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