Executive Arrests Rattle Emerging Retail Investors in Vietnam

Five months after Nguyen Bien invested his entire savings of $43,500 in stocks, with the dream of one day buying a Hanoi apartment for his family, a string of arrests shook Vietnam’s markets and sent the benchmark index plunging.

The nation’s regulators said they were moving to improve transparency and halt manipulation in the $305 billion equities market as Vietnam moved to woo more international investors. A string of prominent executives were detained and rumors of further arrests have driven stocks down 9.3% so far this month.

While the finance ministry tried to calm fears, saying late Tuesday that it ...