Contents of this article
Alongside topics such as opening an account, reading the price board and placing orders, stock market trading hours are another thing new investors need to understand. In this article, we will look at the rules on trading hours for securities products in the Vietnamese market.
Trading days
In Vietnam today, investors can trade on 3 different exchanges: HOSE, HNX and UPCoM. Trading days on all 3 are:
- Monday to Friday every week.
- No trading at weekends or on public holidays.
Trading hours
Because the markets are run by two separate exchanges, the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange and the Hanoi Stock Exchange, trading hours for stocks listed on HOSE, HNX and UPCoM also differ, as follows:
Trading hours on HOSE
The trading day on HOSE is split into 2 sessions: the morning session (9:00 to 11:30) and the afternoon session (13:00 to 15:00). Each session has periods with their own rules, which apply to all listed products, including stocks, closed-end fund certificates, ETF certificates and covered warrants, as follows:
- 09:00 – 09:15: Opening call auction (ATO – At the opening)
During this period, investors place the permitted order types and, as the name “periodic matching” suggests, the stock price is calculated to arrive at the ATO price, i.e. the stock’s opening price for the day. The opening price is usually the price at which the largest volume is traded during this period.
Order types allowed in this session: LO, ATO
- 09:30 – 11:30: Continuous matching session I
During this period, trading takes place by matching buy and sell orders as soon as they are entered into the trading system.
Order types allowed: LO, MP
- 11:30 – 13:00: Lunch break
This is the break between the morning and afternoon sessions. No orders can be placed during this time.
- 13:00 – 14:30: Continuous matching session II
As in continuous matching session I, trading takes place by matching buy and sell orders as soon as they are entered into the trading system
Order types allowed: LO, MP
- 14:30 – 14:45: Closing call auction (ATC – At the closing)
As with the opening auction, during the closing call auction investors place the permitted order types, and the stock’s closing price is calculated to arrive at the ATC price. The closing price is usually the price at which the largest volume is traded during this period.
Order types allowed: LO, ATC
In addition, from 9:00 to 11:30 and 13:00 to 15:00 on each trading day, alongside order matching on the exchange, negotiated (put-through) trades also take place and are shown on brokerage firms’ price boards.
Trading hours on HNX
On HNX, trading hours are set separately for stocks and for VN30 index futures, as follows:
For stocks
The trading day for stocks on HNX is split into 2 sessions: the morning session (9:00 to 11:30) and the afternoon session (13:00 to 15:00). Each session has periods with their own rules, as follows:
- 09:00 – 11:30: Continuous matching I
There is no ATO session as on HOSE. Instead, HNX lets investors trade by continuous matching, as on HOSE, for the whole morning session, with a wider range of order types.
Order types allowed: LO, MTL, MOK, MAK
- 11:30 – 13:00: Lunch break
- 13:00 – 14:30: Continuous matching II
As in the morning session, investors can trade using the permitted order types during this period.
Order types allowed: LO, MTL, MOK, MAK
- 14:30 – 14:45: Closing call auction (ATC – At the closing)
During the closing call auction, investors place the permitted order types and the stock’s closing price is calculated to arrive at the ATC price. The closing price is usually the price that maximises traded volume.
Order types allowed: LO, ATC
- 14:45 – 15:00: After-hours matching
This period lets investors buy and sell at the closing price after the closing call auction has ended. The session’s closing price is therefore the ATC price from the closing auction.
Order types allowed: PLO
As on HOSE, HNX allows negotiated trades throughout trading hours in both the morning and afternoon sessions.
For VN30 index futures
The VN30 index futures market opens earlier than the underlying stock market, starting at 8:45, with the following periods:
- 08:45 – 09:00: Opening call auction – ATO
- 09:00 – 11:30: Continuous matching I
- 13:00 – 14:30: Continuous matching II
- 14:30 – 14:45: Closing call auction – ATC
The order types used to trade futures in these periods are similar to those for stocks. In addition, VN30 futures contracts have 2 positions, long and short, corresponding to buying and selling. Investors can take either position throughout trading hours.
Trading hours on UPCoM
UPCoM has only 3 trading periods:
- 09:00 – 11:30: Continuous matching I
- 11:30 – 13:00: Lunch break
- 13:00 – 15:00: Continuous matching II
Order types allowed: LO
Below is a summary table of trading hours on all 3 exchanges for easy reference.
Some notable points about trading hours
From my own trading experience, I have noticed many interesting things about how the Vietnamese market manages its trading hours. They may seem simple, but they directly affect investors’ trading results.
The ATO and ATC sessions
The ATO and ATC sessions are run as 15-minute call auctions. This is to minimise the risk of abnormal price swings at these 2 sensitive moments. In a market heavily driven by crowd psychology, as the Vietnamese stock market is, this matters more than ever.
In particular, the ATO and ATC sessions on derivatives expiry days often show unusual price swings in stocks. There are many reasons for this, but the fact that these swings have happened so many times has made investors more cautious in ATO and ATC sessions.
The ATO session is also when investors show how excited they are about the morning news, as financial newspapers publish between about 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Negative or positive news can therefore easily affect the final ATO matched price.
Continuous matching sessions
Continuous matching takes up most of the trading day, so the session’s high and low prices are also usually set during this period.
Trading volume usually peaks between 09:30 and 10:00 and between 13:30 and 14:00. These are also the times when investor sentiment swings most sharply.
This article has covered the rules on trading hours on Vietnam’s stock exchanges. An old saying holds that “the right time, the right place and the right people” are the 3 ingredients of success, with the right time coming first. Stock investors also need to understand the patterns of time within the trading session in order to make the right decisions.
Happy trading!
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