Vietnam rally masks foreign retreat

VIETNAM is on the cusp of joining the emerging-markets club and stocks have notched their biggest rally in years, but foreigners have been sellers and say investing is handicapped by tariff risks, ownership limits and one firm’s dominance of the index.

That could hold back global capital from South-East Asia’s fastest-growing economy at a time when money is flowing to smaller markets, even after a likely bump from FTSE Russell’s upgrade of Vietnam’s market from frontier into secondary emerging status, expected to be effective from September.