US President Donald Trump's was able, his first political victory, on 1st December 2017 to announce the reduction of the corporate income tax from 35% to 20%. In order to offset the losses of an estimated USD 1.4 trillion over the next 10 years, Trump goes on to impose taxes on imports of washing machines and solar panels.
On 1st March 2018, Trump announced the imposition of a tariff of 25% on imported steel and 10% on aluminum. The US also threatened to increase the tax on car imports from the EU.
Concerned about a potential global trade war, we argue on the impact of Trump's new tax law in two ways: (1) investment and (2) exchange rate
Recent public data from EVN regarding total output of the electricity system in the first two months of 2018 showed positive signals from the beginning of the year.
2017 Business results and 2018 Plan
AST, CIA, SGN and SCS has displayed great growth in revenue and profit, and promises to maintain that performance. In terms of valuation, AST is the cheapest among them, trading at 11.3x trailing P/E, while SCS is the most expensive one (23.8x trailing P/E)
By the end of 2017, the dairy sector in Vietnam reached VND100,000 billion in revenue (+10% YoY), according to the Vietnam Dairy Association. The main growth driver came from powdered milk and drinking milk when the revenue growth from these two segments accounted for 75% of total industry growth
Foregin investors net bought around VND 11,618 billion over the first two months of 2018. They net bought, VND 11,720 billion on the HSX and VND 552 billion on the HNX.
Recently, amidst news that the US government has been given the green light to increase import duties on Chinese and Vietnamese steel (up to a minimum of 24% and 7.7% respectively), the market seems to be concerned about the impact on listed steelmakers. However, considering the domestic steel market conditions and the share of the US market in the export structure, Rong Viet Securities expects that the imposition of taxes, if any, will not be harmful to Vietnamese steel exporters. The imposition of US import tax on Chinese steel could even be a good news and a driving force for in-depth development of the Vietnamese steel industry.
In 2017, larger contract volume (Qc) well played it role as the hedging instrument to help PPC achieve 74% growth YoY in operating profit despite a 10% reduction in sales volume. In addition, the reduction of financial expenses due to lower debt outstanding and large amount of extraordinary profits including the reversal of provision from QTP and the divestment from a subsidiary were the key catalysts for NPAT of PPC to grow by 52% YoY. When it comes to 2018, we expect lower Qc for PPC but total output would be higher thanks to the recovery in operation after major overhaul in 2017.In addition, having less extraordinary profits, business result of the company in 2018 would decline by around one-third and expect less surge as well.
MWG set the target for 2018 of 30% revenue growth and 18% net profit growth which is considerably lower than CAGR of 61% revenue and 49% net profit in the last 3 years. It is quite understandable considering the saturation of the consumer electronics market and the Green Grocery has just entered its expansion phase. Below are MWG’s plans for its 3 main retail chains:
In 2017, total customer loans of ten listed banks (in HSX and HNX) grew 19.4% YoY, higher than the growth of banking system’s growth but slightly lower than their growth in 2016. Compared to the loan growth of these other two State-owned banks (CTG and BID), VCB’s growth was lower, implying a more conservative of VCB’s management. In the meanwhile, the private commercial banks’ customer loan grew faster, with more than 20% YoY. In which, those of ACB, MBB, and VPB reached the highest figure, 21.5%, 22.2% and 26.3% respectively. Loan growth of EIB and STB were merely 16.6% and 12.1% respectively, which were far below their peers’. Nonetheless, the situation was better than that in 2016, with 2.5% and 7.0% respectively.
In 2017, the food & beverages sector continuously recorded a positive performance thanks to the outperform of FMCG industry. By the end of November 2017, FMCG industry posted a 5.4% and 4.6% growth in urban 4 cities and rural area, respectively