‘Shark’ PYN Elite Fund: This year’s VN-Index should be called ‘VIN-Index’

In a recent letter to investors, Petri Deryng, Portfolio Manager of PYN Elite Fund (Finland), said that in his field, many people joke that this year’s VN-Index should be called “VIN-Index”. Because just one group of businesses has dominated almost the entire movement of the index.

Vingroup’s VIC shares account for more than 20% of VN-Index’s capitalization. Therefore, the fluctuations of this code alone can have a strong impact on the entire index. According to him, VIC’s upward momentum is partly supported by public investment projects, although the core business, VinFast electric vehicles, is still losing money. “The valuation of Vingroup shares relies heavily on future cash flows, which are very difficult to convert into short-term profits,” this expert emphasized.

Because it does not hold “Vin family” stocks including VIC, VHM, VRE and VPL, PYN Elite Fund had to record worse performance than VN-Index this year. Their net asset value (NAV) increased by about 30% in the first 8 months of the year, equivalent to the increase of the VN-Index. However, as of December 10, efficiency dropped to 14.8%. Meanwhile, the general index recorded an increase of about 35.7%, but if the “Vin family” group is excluded, the increase of VN-Index is only about 14.8%.

Mr. Petri Deryng said that not only PYN Elite, many active investment funds will also feel that this is a difficult trading year such as VEIL, VOF, KIM funds… Most of which do not hold a large proportion of Vingroup shares.

Meanwhile, passive ETFs invest in simulating indexes, so VIC shares automatically become large holdings in the portfolio because the price increases so quickly. This explains why the VanEck ETF’s performance outperformed many active funds in 2025. In euro terms, the VanEck ETF is up more than 40%.

Although this ETF has a very successful year 2025, he made a comparison over a 5-year time frame showing that PYN Elite is still superior. Specifically, the proactive fund from Finland recorded a performance of 61.5% over the past 5 years, while the fund of an asset manager of more than a hundred billion USD only increased by 19.4%.

“After a special year like 2025, active investment funds in Vietnam, including PYN Elite, are completely capable of competing again with passive ETFs in terms of investment performance,” he stated.

Talking more about Vingroup shares, Mr. Petri Deryng recalled that some analysts such as Ho Chi Minh City Securities (HSC) have raised the target price of VIC shares this year but still believe that the current increase is “overkill”. They recommend selling at a target price about 45% lower than the current market price.

In a recent report, Vietcap Securities (VCI) acknowledged that VIC’s current stock price has doubled in the past 3 months, possibly “quite far exceeding the medium-term profit outlook”. The above comment comes from Vingroup’s expansion into new fields, including a number of large-scale project proposals in the energy and infrastructure sectors, which are assessed to strengthen long-term prospects. However, this analyst group believes that the medium-term profit contribution of these segments will remain limited.

Generally speaking about the whole market in the long term, PYN Elite Fund maintains a target of 3,200 points for the VN-Index in 2028. This target is based on the assumption of average profit growth of 18-20% per year. This year alone, profit growth could exceed 20%.

This fund highly values ​​the economic growth strategy based on domestic demand, supported by mega public projects and administrative reforms. Enterprises focusing on the domestic market account for a large proportion of the stock market, so the profit growth of listed enterprises will clearly benefit from new economic priorities and be reflected in the market in the coming years.

At the same time, the market has also shown signs of modernization such as the upgraded trading system, and the margin requirement before buying shares has been partially abolished. Currently, the regulator is working to deploy a central clearing counterparty (CCP), thereby shortening settlement times.

PYN Elite Fund is an investment fund from Finland, operating strongly in the Vietnamese stock market, famous for investing in large stocks, especially banking and technology groups. They are often called “sharks” because of the size of their portfolio and their influence in the market. As of the end of November, this fund managed about 890.86 million euros (more than 28,300 billion VND).