Vinfast - gold-mine
I don't know how many of you have been to Vietnam, or even the surrounding countries. There are quite a lot of Vinfast cars on the streets. In Ho Chi Minh, and Hanoi, the brand is ubiquitous, used both by many taxi drivers, and private owners (not just cars, but also saw quite a few electric scooters too). I really have no idea how Vietnam managed to develop the infrastructure to produce, maintain, and charge so many EV's on their streets, but somehow, they did. Passing around the cities, I was seeing multiple such vehicles everywhere. So... I decided to do some research.
While checking the technicals for this stock, I found something quite surprising.
98% of the stock is privately owned, only 2% is free float. Considering that, and the Vingroup conglomerate backing up the automaker. I believe investing here is a bit similar to investing in GameStop in December 2020.
I think many people are shorting this, believing there is no true competition with other EV manufacturers already established on the market. It's also true that there are quite a few bad reviews of their cars, but from what I saw, they really worked on improving them. The bottom line is that if these would be such bad cars, people wouldn't be buying so many of them, and Vinfast definitely wouldn't be building additional factories. There's also the possibility of having Qatar invest 1B in the company. With their current production capacity, even if they will be swallowed up by another manufacturer, it seems severely undervalued.
Disclaimer: I just bought 5k of this stock today. To me at least, it seems to be a hidden gem - I guess only time will tell. Either way, I'd advise sincere caution if shorting it. Given the extremely small percentage of free float, I think this stock has the power to snap strongly to the upside.
No one can truly predict the future. This is just my BEPU (best estimate plus uncertainty).
Hindsight is always 20/20, so best of luck to everyone,
Alex
