Psst! Hey, buddy. Wanna buy some shares in this company here? It's set to triple over the next four months. It's got no auditors or financial statements, but my friend's uncle's cousin works there and he says it's a sure thing.
OK, so it doesn't go down exactly like that. But everyday Vietnamese folks are reportedly getting in way over their heads by day trading the shares of local, recently semi-privatized companies. If you thought our Pink Sheets were the Wild West, think again. The side market for these unlisted firms isn't regulated, and people directly transact with one another over Internet chat rooms, personally taking delivery of the physical shares and sometimes registering the transaction with the issuing company, sometimes not.
The market participants are going to get burned eventually, as their American predecessors can attest. CMGI (NASDAQ:CMGI), anyone? I don't know how broadly this market frenzy will penetrate the Vietnamese population, but if it draws in enough speculators, as it seems to have done in equally bubbly China, the country's red-hot economy could be in for a bit of a wallop.
Now, there's no reason to believe that a correction in Vietnam would have much of an impact on the large multinational operators who have set up shop there. Motorola (NYSE:MOT), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), and 3M (NYSE:MMM) are in it for the cheap labor, literacy rate, and language skills of Vietnam's workforce, rather than the strength of Vietnam's domestic consumption. However, I don't think anybody is eager to play another round of Asian Contagion, so let's hope that Vietnam's regulators decide to opt for preventative care rather than a post-mortem.
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Fool contributor Toby Shute doesn't own shares in any company mentioned. 3M and Intel are Inside Value recommendations. The Motley Fool has a cool, rational disclosure policy.
