Hello everyone.
Let’s talk about Vietnamese stocks with complete honesty.
I am Lynn, an investor specializing in FIRE and Vietnamese stocks.
This time, I looked into PVT (PetroVietnam Transportation), a company that transports oil. However, the entry point for this discussion is a bit unexpected: FPT, the leading tech stock in Vietnam.
Are you concerned about the recent decline in FPT? Even though their performance is growing, the stock price has been lackluster for a while.
I believe one of the reasons for this is that the destination for global capital is changing. From tech stocks to ‘tangible assets’ like resources and energy. And I suspect that PVT, which transports oil, is at the end of that flow.
In this article, I will examine FPT’s decline, the flow of global capital, 50 years of crude oil prices, tanker freight rates, and even PVT’s P/E ratio, one by one.
Q. Why did you focus on this company?
A. The other day, when I was refueling my motorbike at a local gas station, the price tag had been changed again. Gasoline prices in Vietnam are set by the government and change almost every week. Who benefits when crude oil prices rise? As I researched this, I arrived at PVT, a company that transports crude oil.
PVT is a shipping company under the state-owned oil group, PetroVietnam. They transport crude oil, petroleum products, chemicals, and gas using their own fleet of tankers.
In other words, PVT is a company that earns money not from the price of crude oil itself, but from the ‘transportation fees’ for crude oil. In this article, I will use this point as the backbone of our analysis.
First, let me share my perspective.
I believe one of the reasons for FPT’s decline is that global capital is shifting from ‘tech’ to ‘tangible assets.’ However, that is not the only reason. This is my hypothesis.
And for PVT, which is at the end of that flow, the current P/E ratio is about 9x. Compared to historical levels, it is by no means cheap. Still, I see that the reason it is being bought is not because of the price of crude oil, but because of tanker freight rates.
What you will learn in this article
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Why is FPT falling? Where is global capital heading?
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What 50 years of crude oil prices reveal (Lynn-style analysis chart)
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Is PVT’s P/E ratio of about 9x high compared to the past? (The view based on forward P/E is in the paid section)
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The reason profits increased by 70% and what will happen to freight rates in 2027 (paid section)
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The reason why you still cannot judge PVT solely by the ‘price of crude oil’ (paid section)
Why is FPT falling?
FPT’s stock price has fallen by about 40% since the beginning of 2026. Compared to its high at the beginning of 2025, it is almost half (Source: various Vietnamese news reports).
A major factor is selling by foreign investors. Since the beginning of 2026, net foreign selling has reached approximately 1.68 trillion VND. This was the largest net selling in the market.
The foreign ownership ratio has dropped from 45.87% at the end of 2024 to 27.58% in July. FPT, which was once such a popular stock that foreigners couldn’t buy it even if they wanted to, now has a large amount of room available for foreign investors.
What is strange is that the company’s performance is not bad. New orders in the first half of the year are up about 30% from the previous year.
The reason cited is that the spread of AI has led to global concerns about the future of traditional IT services, causing the valuation of the entire industry to decline (Source: MBS industry report, news reports).
However, I believe there is another reason. It is that the destination of global money itself may be changing.
Here is an article on how to interpret foreign buying and selling.
Where is global money heading?
On May 1, 2026, Reuters reported that money is flowing rapidly into mining stocks, with major asset managers expecting a ‘supercycle’ (a long-lasting bull market for resources).
According to the article, assets under management in mining ETFs (investment trusts that bundle mining stocks) reached $87.4 billion at the end of March, more than double the $37 billion from a year ago (Source: Reuters, ETFGI data).
In the first quarter alone, $8.24 billion flowed into mining.
About $6 billion also flowed into oil and gas. The article describes this as ‘one of the most rapid shifts of capital into tangible assets in history.’
The background cited includes AI infrastructure, increased defense spending, and the movement of funds from overvalued tech stocks.
Here, I thought. Even in the age of AI, the economy does not run on digital alone. Data centers that run AI need electricity, and building power grids and power plants requires copper and iron. And to run them, you need energy.
If the money from selling tech stocks is heading toward these ‘tangible assets,’ then FPT’s decline might be part of that trend. Of course, this is my hypothesis.
Is crude oil really on a ’30-year cycle’?
When I hear the term ‘resource supercycle,’ the first thing that comes to mind is crude oil. It is sometimes said that crude oil has a ’30-year cycle.’ So, I lined up 50 years of annual average prices for Brent crude oil from 1976 to 2025.
The major peaks are in 1980, 1990, 2008, 2012, and 2022 (2011 and 2012 were at almost the same height).
Counting the intervals between the peaks, we get 10 years, 18 years, 4 years, and 10 years. They are quite irregular. Crude oil does not rise and fall in a constant cycle like a clock.
Even so, I look at the 50-year chart to confirm the big trends that cannot be seen from short-term news alone. The price of crude oil moves due to many factors, such as the global economy, production by oil-producing countries, war, energy investment, and decarbonization.
After the 2022 peak, the annual average price fell from $82.49 in 2023 to $69.14 in 2025 (2025 is the average up to August, Source: Statista). I do not believe that the long bull market starting from 2022 is continuing as is.
However, in 2026, the situation changed completely. At the end of February, war broke out between the US/Israel and Iran, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was severely disrupted. In September, the spot price of North Sea Brent briefly exceeded $110 per barrel (Source: S&P Global Platts).
However, the important thing here is that it is not just the ‘price of crude oil’ that is important for PVT. I will write about that in detail in the paid section.
Let’s look at the PVT chart.
PVT’s stock price rose from about 20,000 VND at the beginning of September, and the closing price on October 7 was 24,850 VND. That is an increase of about 20% in about a month (Source: Investing.com).
What I want to watch on the chart is around 25,000 VND. After rising to a high of 25,050 VND on September 29, it was pushed back. The first point of interest is whether it can clearly break through this level with volume.
What is the current situation for PVT when looking at the numbers?
The P/E ratio (how many times the stock price is relative to one year of earnings) is about 9.0x when calculated using the earnings per share of 2,760 VND for the most recent four quarters (Author’s calculation, EPS from Cophieu68).
Net profit (attributable to parent company shareholders) for the first half was 872 billion VND, an increase of 72% from the previous year (Source: Vietcap). Profits are growing significantly.
Is a P/E ratio of about 9x high compared to the past?
Collecting 9 years of year-end P/E ratios from Cophieu68 from 2017 to 2025, the average was 5.21x and the median (middle value) was 5.24x (Author’s compilation).
The current level of about 9x is about 1.7 times the median. Until now, PVT has often been valued at a P/E ratio in the 3x to 7x range. Compared to the past, the current PVT is by no means cheap.
However, the P/E ratio falls as profits increase. Profits in the first half increased by more than 70% compared to the previous year. So, how does the current stock price look when including profit forecasts?
*The year-end P/E ratios for the past 9 years are based on figures from Cophieu68 compiled by the author, and the calculation method may not be the same as the current P/E ratio calculated by the author. The year 2016 is not included as it could not be confirmed on the same page.
Where does PVT stand right now?
Profits are growing at a pace of about 1.7 times that of the previous year, and the stock price rose by about 20% in September. The P/E ratio is about 1.7 times its historical median. This is PVT’s current position.
So, is PVT already overvalued? Or are there still reasons for it to be valued higher?
What will we verify in this article?
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1. What kind of company is PVT in the first place?
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2. Why did profits increase by 70% in the first half?
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3. Why look at ‘shipping rates’ instead of ‘crude oil prices’?
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4. What is the outlook for tanker freight rates in 2027?
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5. Is a P/E ratio of about 9x high, considering the profit growth?
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6. What should we be careful about?
Q: Who are you anyway? My apologies for the late introduction, please let me introduce myself.
Thank you for reading this far. My name is Linh 🍵
I would be happy if you could remember me as ‘FIRE/Vietnam Stock Specialist Investor, Linh’.
I am currently a full-time investor focusing on Vietnam stocks, analyzing market capital flows, corporate performance, and stock price changes.
What I value is not just chasing short-term price movements, but capturing market changes and exploring sectors and stocks that may attract attention next. I separate my investment focus into short-term and long-term, facing the market with different time horizons for each.
In the past, I published an article featuring VNZ, and the stock price doubled in about three months thereafter.
Also, regarding PNJ, I published an article summarizing my own decision to sell. On the next business day, September 28, the stock price hit three consecutive limit-downs, and as a result, I was able to avoid losses from the subsequent decline.
Of course, I do not intend to treat these price movements as mere success stories. I value recording, reflecting on, and verifying the process: why I focused on that change and what information I based my judgment on. …That said, to be honest about PNJ, I bought it right before it hit four consecutive limit-downs and cut my losses afterward 💦
Investment decisions cannot always be made cleanly.
I myself fail, and I also make mistakes in judgment.
That is precisely why I want to record not only the success stories, but also the ‘why I made that decision’ and ‘where I went wrong’.
This time, I would like to look at the changes happening in the Vietnamese market together, while also drawing on my own investment experience.
The content from here on is for members and those who have purchased this article.
Every morning, I monitor the FireAnt order book and disclosures to track ‘what foreigners are looking at when they move.’ I do not provide flashy trading recommendations. I only write about the ‘structures’ that will remain valuable even if you read them five years from now.
For 980 yen a month, you can read the rest of this and all of my weekly structural analyses. For the price of a cup of coffee, make the Hanoi perspective your weapon 😊
