Le Van Thai, 24, of Hanoi opened his first ever trading account in March this year when stock markets collapsed amid the global Covid-19 outbreak.

"I saw the market slump as an opportunity to bottom fish for stocks with good historical growth and wait for them to recover," he said.

He has a monthly income of VND11 million ($475), and initially invested only VND1 million as he sought to learn about trading and did not expect to make profits.

He saw the stock market as an investment channel with higher potential than bank deposits which offer 6-7 percent interest.

"Even though I have limited investing knowledge, I expect my portfolio to grow at least 20 percent a year."

Like him, Nguyen Quoc Bao, 25, began to monitor the market and trade in the second quarter when the market started to recover as the government was able to contain the first wave of Covid-19 with an efficient social distancing campaign in April.

Bao, who is in his first year at a job in a brokerage, has bought banking stocks and is monitoring retail and aviation that are impacted hugely by the pandemic.

"I expect investments to make returns of 8-15 percent in three to six months, higher than current bank deposit rates."

The two are among 231,400 new investors who have opened trading accounts in the first eight months, a year-on-year increase of 10 percent, taking the total number to 2.56 million, according to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD).