Invest in Vietnam with ETF

Vietnam is one of few (only?) countries in the emerging market which currency value went down vis-a-vis developed market currencies such as the US Dollar or the Euro (Cf. 10 year EUD VND Chart below- Source: xe.com).



They have also devalued their currency recently by 8.5% due to rampant inflation (20%) and already high (but still negative) interest rates (15.9%). They have also raised their interest rates, increase the electricity rates and the stock market tanked following those bad news.

Marc Faber also recommended investing in Vietnam at the end of last year.

I found 2 ETF to do so. One is available in the US market: Market Vectors Vietnam ETF (VNM) and the other in Hong Kong: X DBFTSEVIET (3087.HK).

The graph below charts the vietnam stock market (red), VNM ETF(green) and 3087:HK (orange) since the ETF are available (July 2010).




Bear in mind that the ETF are in US and HKD (linked currency) but the Ho Chi Min index is expressed in Vietnamese Dong, so adjusting for currency fluctuations shows that 3087:HK tracks the Vietnam stock market closer, but VNM outperforms both the Ho Chi Min index and the Hong Kong ETF.

I am not sure about the reason for this difference, but this is not because of the expense ratio (VNM: 0.76% vs 3087:HK: 0.85%) or premium (VNM: 2.404% vs 3087:HK: 1.129%)