An investor looks at stock prices on a laptop at a brokerage in
Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran. 

The Hanoi Stock Exchange is considering temporarily taking over some stocks from the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, which is overloaded due a surge in trading volumes. 

The stocks would have the same daily price trading band as earlier but be traded on the HNX, the Hanoi bourse said in a proposal.

HoSE’s system, which has mostly remained unchanged in the last 20 years, has been overwhelmed after a huge number of new investors began trading in recent months.

Many complain about the trouble they have placing buy orders, especially in the afternoon when volumes rise.

HoSE is upgrading its system at a cost of $30 million, but the Covid-19 pandemic is delaying the work, which will not be completed at least until year end.

HoSE hosts the largest capped stocks in the country, including blue chips such as conglomerate Vingroup and state-owned lender Vietcombank.

It has 369 tickers with a daily trading band of 7 percent.

Trading averaged VND14.3 trillion ($620 million) a day last month, nearly quadrupling in value from the same time last year.

The HNX lists 141 mid-cap and small-cap stocks and has a 10 percent daily trading band.