VietNamNet Bridge – With cautiousness--in the lives of investors, they dare not expect brisk trade and do not intend to pour big money into investment deals in 2014, the Year of Horse.

There are not many choices for investors

The big gold centers in Hanoi have been quiet for the last few months with very few transactions. No one queues up in front of the gold shops waiting for buying gold – the scenes that were regularly seen in the previous years.

In the real estate market, the supply is so profuse that the leaflets with the information about real estate projects have been delivered to every person.

People can find the news about the apartment sale campaigns on streets, on buses, on their phones or emails. Meanwhile, in the past, only the luckiest people who had close relations with VIPs or developers could buy the products at the original prices.

The cool dollar market has also disappointed investors. Commercial banks in early 2014 cut down the dollar prices to VND21,070-21,110 per dollar. Meanwhile, the national foreign currency reserves have increased sharply over the last two years to $30-32 billion. The State Bank has committed to stabilize the dong/dollar exchange rate, which means that dollar would not be an attractive investment channel.

In previous years, the dollar price jumped on the days just before Tet, because people tried to collect dollars for the fear that the dong would depreciate, while good prices would go up after Tet.

However, the investments in foreign currencies have got weaker. The stable exchange rate has made the profits from dollar trading unattractive.

Stocks and bank deposits will be the biggest choices in 2014

Domestic and international economists all have said they can see the signs of the economic recovery. If this comes true, when the national economy warms up, the stock market would also be bustling again, because the market is considered the “thermometer” of the economy.

The stock market witnessed the VN Index increasing in all the five trading session of the week from January 6 to January 10, with the trading volume up by 20 percent. Most of the listed companies saw their share prices increasing, from securities companies to banks.

However, analysts believe that bank depositing would still be the choice of the majority of people.

The deposit interest rates have become less attractive after falling down from over 20 percent to 9 percent per annum. However, depositors would still deposit their idle money at banks, if they consider the inflation rate of 6.04 percent in 2013 and the predicted rate of 7 percent in 2014.

What has happened so far this year shows that the cash flow has been heading towards the stock market and banks, two of the five most popular investment channels.

The other three channels, namely dollar, gold and real estate, have become less attractive to investors. They keep indifferent to dollar and gold. Meanwhile, they do not expect satisfactory profits with the investments in the real estate market, despite the high demand, because of the buyers’ limited financial capability.

Manh Ha – Phuoc Ha