A trader watching the market's movements on his computer.

Statistics until March 24 showed that foreign investors net sold more than US$4.3 trillion (US$188 million) on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), bringing the net selling value since the beginning of the year to nearly VNĐ7.7 trillion.

The selling force of foreign investors recently has been attributed to a pair of foreign exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that have just finished restructuring their portfolios - Vaneck Vectors Vietnam ETF (VNM ETF) and FTSE Vietnam ETF.

In March alone, the two leading foreign ETFs in the market reported a total net withdrawal of more than $24 million.

Of which, VNM ETF saw an outflow of 1 million fund certificates, worth $18.71 million. Currently, the fund has a portfolio size of $515 million and it spends about 85 per cent on Vietnamese stocks.

In the VNM ETF portfolio structure, Vingroup (VIC) is currently the stock with the largest proportion with 8.23 per cent, followed by Hoà Phát (HPG) accounting for 7.36 per cent, Vinhomes (VHM, 7.2 per cent), Masan (MSN, 5.35 per cent), and Novaland (NVL, 5.33 per cent).

Meanwhile, the FTSE Vietnam ETF witnessed a net withdrawal of $5.7 million since the beginning of March, thereby bringing the net sold value from the beginning of the year until now to $7.4 million.

FTSE Vietnam ETF currently devotes 100 per cent of its portfolio to Vietnamese stocks, with HPG occupying the largest proportion of 11.91 per cent, followed by VHM (11.73 per cent), VIC (11,11 per cent), MSN (9.02 per cent), and VNM (6.39 per cent).