On October 28, foreign investors net sold VND 259.73 billion of FPT shares, the most of any stock that session. FPT fell 2.53% to VND 54,000 per share while the VN-Index rose 0.27% to 1,766.65 points.Hà Nội Mới One session of net selling says little. The cumulative figure behind it says more.
As of the October 28 session, foreign investors held just over 455 million FPT shares, a foreign ownership ratio below 27%. Remaining foreign room, meaning the shares overseas investors can still buy before hitting the 49% cap, has widened to more than 22%.CafeF To see how large that shift is, we need to go back almost three years.
End-2023: room full at the 49% cap
At the last session of 2023 (December 29, 2023), FPT's remaining foreign room was zero. Foreign investors held exactly the 49% ceiling. Anyone wanting more could only buy from another foreign investor who was selling. According to CafeF, that was FPT's normal state for years, with foreign room routinely filled to 49%.CafeF
For a domestic holder, full room meant nearly half the company sat with a group of shareholders who rarely sold on the market, since a seller knew buying back would be hard.
May 29, 2024: room opens for the first time
According to Investify data, the May 29, 2024 session was the first time FPT's foreign room had any space, at 603,909 shares available to buy. The gap lasted two sessions before room filled again. From the June 6, 2024 session, room stayed open continuously.
The open amount was tiny relative to the company's size. It marks the point where the balance of supply and demand among foreign investors began to shift, nothing more.
End-2024 and end-2025: the gap widens
At the last session of 2024 (December 31, 2024), open room was about 50.11 million shares. A year later, on December 31, 2025, it stood at 168.14 million.
Converted to ownership ratios, Investify data estimates foreign investors held about 45.6% of FPT at end-2024 and about 39.1% at end-2025. These are estimates: FPT kept issuing new shares during this period, including a 15% stock dividend in 2023 and 15% bonus shares in each of 2024 and 2025. A larger share count also moves the percentage, so the widening room cannot be attributed entirely to selling. Even so, the direction is clear: the ratio fell year after year.
2026: the heaviest year of net selling
The gap widened fastest in 2026. According to CafeF, from the start of the year through October 28, foreign investors net sold almost 211 million FPT shares, worth roughly VND 16,500 billion.CafeF Investify data for January 5 to October 28 is close: 209.72 million shares, worth VND 16,369 billion.
With about 1,714.33 million FPT shares outstanding, this year's net selling equals roughly 12% of the company's shares. Put differently, about one in every eight FPT shares moved from foreign hands to domestic hands in ten months.
The selling was uneven. In January, foreign investors were still net buyers of about VND 1,483 billion. In February they net sold VND 8,141 billion, nearly half the total for the whole period. March, April and May each saw net selling of roughly VND 2,500 to 3,000 billion. Pressure eased in June and July, then foreign investors net bought VND 882.40 billion in August and VND 804.57 billion in September.
Those two buying months did not last. From the start of October through October 28, foreign investors net sold about VND 1,760 billion again, of which VND 259.73 billion came on October 28 alone.
Market-wide, FPT is the second most net-sold stock by foreign investors this year, behind only VHM at about VND 23,188 billion.CafeF Within the information technology group the gap is starker: the second most net-sold name is CMG, at just VND 153.15 billion. So when people say foreign investors are leaving Vietnamese tech stocks this year, almost all of that figure comes from a single name, FPT.
Who holds FPT in place of foreign investors
Every trade has two sides. Each share foreign investors net sell is a share domestic investors net buy. The nearly 211 million shares sold since January now sit in the accounts of domestic retail investors, institutions and funds.
With foreign investors holding under 27%, more than 73% belongs to domestic shareholders. FPT's price now depends more on whether domestic investors want to buy or sell, rather than mainly on the decisions of overseas funds.
The value of those holdings has shrunk too. At VND 54,000 per share, FPT is roughly half its early-2025 peak. Market capitalization is about VND 100,000 billion, the lowest since August 2023, and no longer enough to place FPT among the ten largest companies on the Vietnamese market.CafeF Over the same period, earnings kept growing. In the first nine months of 2026, FPT reported revenue of VND 40,023 billion, up 12.4%, and pre-tax profit of VND 8,770 billion, up 17% year on year.CafeF
These figures show who is selling, who is buying and where the price has landed. They do not show why foreign investors are selling, so this article assigns no reason to that flow.
What more than 22% of open room means
Open room can be read two ways. First, it is the trace of capital that has left: room does not open by itself. It opens because foreign investors sold more than they bought, plus newly issued shares that they did not buy enough of to maintain their ratio.
Second, it is headroom. When room was full, a foreign fund wanting FPT had to wait for another foreign investor to sell. With more than 22% open, a foreign investor who returns can buy directly on the market without running into the ownership limit for a long time.
The two readings do not exclude each other, but open room only becomes headroom when someone uses it. August and September show this: foreign investors were net buyers for two months in a row, then net sellers again in October.
Signals to watch
The thesis here is fairly clear: domestic investors now hold the larger share of FPT, and the stock's supply and demand depend more on domestic money. That thesis reverses only if the foreign ownership ratio stops falling and then rises steadily over several months, unlike the short buying stretch of August and September.
For anyone holding FPT, the number to put next to the price is the foreign ownership ratio, month by month. If it moves sideways for a few months, foreign selling has been fading. If it keeps falling, domestic investors will keep absorbing more shares. November's trading data will show whether October's net selling was a short move or the next leg of this nearly three-year journey.