Division of English for Specific Purposes
English for Finance and Banking
Vietnam National University, Hanoi
University of Languages and International Studies
Case Study Summary Alignment to the Course Learning Objectives:
Description: In this Case Study, Students will be able to
students are supposed to apply the ● Describe their budget plan
understanding of what they have learnt ● Recognize the value of young people investing and/or saving early to
in the course of English for Finance and extract maximum earnings from their investments.
Banking, i.e. Money, Financial ● Explain why asset allocation and diversification are key strategies for
Institutions, Savings and Investment successful investing and savings
and Taxation, from setting priorities, ● Explain what financial institutions are and how they are used to construct
creating an investing and savings or funds
either goal, tracking spending and ● Understand the difference between investing tools such as stocks, index
learning about tradeoffs required to funds, mutual funds, and other more or less risky investments and the
achieve financial goals. They take on costs and benefits associated with each
the role of a graduate to develop various ● Understand the different sources of savings
options and strategies to achieve a ● Identify the pros and cons of different methods to implement an
budgeting goal. investment and/or savings strategy
● Explain types of taxation applied in each situation
Internet Usage: Required
Format: Individual work
CASE STUDY 1
SAVINGS/INVESTING PLAN
You are a graduate, earning VND 12,000,000 (NET) per month. You attribute your financial savvy to the
current job and the courses (i.e. English for Finance and Banking) you have held over the past four years.
These jobs helped you save VND 50,000,000. You are currently making a savings and/or investment plan for
6 months, starting from December, 2023 to May, 2024.
In order to make a feasible plan, you are advised to develop a basic plan tracking every VND you spend over
the course of a month (Step 1). After this, you should study various sources of savings and investment (or
either) to weigh pros and cons of these tools (Step 2). Following this, Step 3 develops a savings and
investment (or either) plan to boost your budget. In your writing, you need to: (1) Explain why you save and
invest (or either); (2) Analyze at least 2 tools of investment and savings (or either) to justify why you have
chosen them for your saving and investing (or either) plan; (3) Explain returns and risks you may have; (4)
Identify type(s) of tax applied in these cases.
Note: Your writing should have about 1,000 words in total.
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Step 1. Developing a basic spending plan
To make sense of all of this information, you organize the information by using the budget template provided
below. In the category column, you will list all of your various expenses. In the Monthly Cost column, you will
total up the cost for each of the expenses. In the last column, you will calculate how much that item is as a
percentage of your total costs. This should help you determine where you spent most of your money in the past
month.
1. Complete this chart with the information provided above:
Category Monthly Cost Percentage of
Total Costs
Coffee 500.000 7,6
Makeup kit 200.000 3,05
Food 2.000.000 30,5
Clothes 1.000.000 15,3
Socializing 900.000 13,7
Gas 300.000 4,6
Cell phone bill 150.000 2,3
Others (hobby, personal 1.500.000 22,9
expense, emergency)
TOTAL COSTS 6.550.000
Answer This:
2. After completing the chart, do some quick math to compare how much you should be saving per
month and to compare it to how much you are spending to determine your savings and investment (or
either) plan.
Personal income tax: 15% = VND 1.800.000
Save VND 3.650.000 per month -> after 6 months: VND 21.900.000 ~ 21,9% saving goal (VND
100M)
Need a stable passive income (may come from investment) or cut back on some spending (difficult
because all the costs are necessary)
Need to invest to make about VND 80M in 6 months (saving to earn that amount of money in a haft of
a year is too difficult)
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Step 2. Study various sources of investment and savings (or either)
Study a list of investing and savings (or either) sources (at least 3 for each) and weigh pros and cons of
these sources.
Saving/Investing Pros Cons
sources
Saving Account - Safe - Very low return
- Offer interest rates - Interest rates can change
- Stable - Cannot reach end goal alone
- Minimum investment amount
Gold - Relatively low risk - Low return
- Highly liquid, fares well - Substantial extra expenses
during economic downturns - Doesn’t give me passive
- Scarce and lasts a long time income or steady returns
- Require little background - Expensive to invest in some
knowledge and effort period of time
- Easily stolen
- Cannot reach end goal alone
Stocks - High return - Require lots of knowledge,
- Potential for my portfolio to research, and planning
grow with the economy - Tax
- Have a relatively low barrier - Risky
to entry
- Can reach end goal alone
Real estate - Steady income - High initial costs
- Long-term capital appreciation - Illiquidity
- Tax benefits - Time-consuming and stressful
- Leads to a diversified - Is affected by market
investment portfolio fluctuations
- Can provide a hedge against - Risk of bad tenants
market volatility
- Allows me to have a more
hands-on approach
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Step 3. Developing your saving and investing (or either) plan
(1) Explain why you save and invest (or either);
(2) Analyze at least 2 tools of investment and savings (or either) to justify why you have chosen them for
your saving and investing (or either) plan;
(3) Explain returns and risks you may have;
(4) Identify type(s) of tax applied in these cases.
With a view to have a trip to Switzerland in July 2024, which may cost me up to VND 80M to VND 100M for
10 days and 9 nights, I have decided to build a financial plan to be as well-prepared as possible. Bare in mind
that I cannot earn over VND 60M just by saving and relying on the interest rates, I consider investing as my
main tools of this plan, including buying gold and stocks investment. In this essay, analysis of these two main
tools, the reason why I have chosen them as well as returns, risks, applied types of tax during a 6-month period
from 1st December 2023 to 31st May 2024 will be presented.
To start with, gold is a low-risk asset to invest in with someone who has little experience in the field as I do
because it does not require much background knowledge and effort while still maintaining high liquidity and
stability which can fare well during economic downturns. Besides, gold tends to be scarce and lasts for a long
time. However, there are some disadvantages of buying gold including low return and substantial extra expense
as I have to keep them in a safe place (for example, a bank safe deposit box or a specialized storage facility) and
protect them against theft or harm. Moreover, gold doesn’t give me passive income and it is quite expensive to
invest in some period of time.
When it comes to stocks, there is much more high and promising return within a short period of time. Investing
in stocks is potential for my portfolio to grow with the economy, with a relatively low barrier to entry and a
strong ability to reach the final goal quickly. Nevertheless, stocks investment involves lots of knowledge,
research and planning that should be carefully taken into consideration. This investing asset is also quite risky
because it may help me become a millionaire or end up in bankruptcy if I made mistakes. Therefore, I need to
analyze it concernedly before actually investing.
From the brief analysis above, I have decided to combine these two tools to gain the highest possible profit and
reach the final goal as quickly as I can while controlling the probable risks. To minimize the risk of losing
everything at once, I will divide my resource and purchase four different stocks instead of investing my whole
savings (VND 50M) in one. Then, I will sell the stocks I own when they reach their peak and take a part of the
gained profit plus the rest of my salary to buy gold. Since the price of gold tends to increase due to some
political and social factors within the given timeframe, investing in gold would bring me a certain amount of
money to save after the trip.
After doing a thorough analysis over the stocks market and the gold market, I have decided to invest VND 20M,
VND 10M, VND 10M, VND 10M successively in four following stocks: B.C.H Joint Stock Company (BCA),
32 Joint Stock Company (CTCP-32), Mobile World Joint Stock Company (MWG), Vietnam Technological and
Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TCB) and buy Doji 9999 type of gold.
Name of stocks Date of buying Amount of Date of selling Return rate Revenue before
invested money (percentages) tax
BCA 01/12/2023 VND 20M 28/02/2024 427% VND 105.416.000
CTCP-32 11/12/2023 VND 10M 16/02/2024 148% VND 24.885.000
MWG 01/12/2023 VND 10M 15/05/2024 64% VND 15.690.000
TCB 01/12/2023 VND 10M 15/05/2024 62% VND 16.168.000
According to finance.vietstock.vn, B.C.H Joint Stock Company has a rapidly increase in the stocks’ price in a 2-
month period, up to four times in comparison with the selling price on 1st December, 2023. Investing in this
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stock may give me a huge revenue in the most ideal situation even when following is a gradual decrease.
However, I will instantly sell the stocks I own when they reach their peak to make sure the profit I gain is
highest. Similarly, the stocks of Mobile World Joint Stock Company and Vietnam Technological and
Commercial Joint Stock Bank are bought and sold, bring me the return rate up to 64% and 62% constantly.
Figure 1: The selling price of BCA on 1st December, 2023 Figure 2: The selling price of BCA on 28th February, 2024
CTCP-32 is the riskiest stock since its price varied dramatically, in contrast to the steady growth of the other
stock choices. In a manner, selling this stock just two days late would have cost me all of my gains. As a result,
to maximum security with this stock pick, it was best to sell before the price began to fall.
Regarding the tax rate on stock transfer proceeds is 0.1%, the total revenue I can earn in February 2024 is VND
Figure 3: The selling price of CTCP-32 on 11st Figure 4: The selling price of CTCP-32 on 16th
December, 2023 February, 2024
130.301.000. At this point, I have come over my goal for my trip to Switzerland. However, I still need to
prepare for the future when the trip ends. Therefore, I have decided to spend the a part from this profit to buy
gold. On Friday, 28th February 2024, the price for a mice of 9999 Doji gold is VND 7.685.000 and on
Wednesday 15th May 2024, the price is VND 8.850.000. I will buy 6 mices of gold on the first mentioned day
and 3.5 mices on the later mentioned day and these will be my saving after the trip.
Taking everything into account, my overall plan is spend my saving of VND 50M on stocks investment. The
total revenue gained from this choice will be divided into two main part, according to the time I sell them. The
first timeframe is the end of February 2024. At this time, I will have sold all BCA and CTCP-32 stocks that I
own, gain over VND 130M in total, which will be spent on my planned Switerland trip and on buying 6 mices
of gold. In the next timeframe, specifically on 15th May 2024, I will sell all of my MWG and TCB stocks, gain
VND 31.858.000 which will be spent on buying 3.5 mices of gold. All of the plan I have presented is
considered in the most ideal situation, regardless of possible risks including sudden decrease in the price or lack
in trading volume in terms of stocks.
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References:
Bank, I. (2019, March 1). Advantages and Disadvantages of savings account. ICICI Bank Blogs.
https://www.icicibank.com/blogs/saving-account/advantages-disadvantages-savings-account
Garcia, A. (2024, January 30). Pros and cons: Guide to investing in gold in 2024. Economy Middle East.
https://economymiddleeast.com/news/gold-investment-pros-cons/
Ligon, M. (2023, October 31). Exploring the pros and cons of real estate investment. Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/10/30/exploring-the-pros-and-cons-of-real-
estate-investment/?sh=4c52ec16258e
Pros and Cons of investing in stocks | SmartAsset. (2023, October 6). https://smartasset.com/investing/pros-and-
cons-of-stocks
Thương T. M. B. C. (2024a, February 15). Giá vàng hôm nay 16/2/2024: Vàng trong nước giảm, thế giới nhích
tăng. Báo Công Thương Điện Tử, Kinh Tế, Chính Trị, Xã Hội. https://congthuong.vn/gia-vang-hom-nay-
1622024-vang-trong-nuoc-giam-the-gioi-nhich-tang-303554.html#:~:text=T%E1%BA%A1i%20th
%E1%BB%9Di%20%C4%91i%E1%BB%83m%20kh%E1%BA%A3o%20s%C3%A1t,tri%E1%BB
%87u%20%C4%91%E1%BB%93ng%2Fl%C6%B0%E1%BB%A3ng%20b%C3%A1n%20ra.
Thương T. M. B. C. (2024b, May 14). Giá vàng hôm nay 15/5/2024: Vàng trong nước giảm, thế giới tăng cao.
Báo Công Thương Điện Tử, Kinh Tế, Chính Trị, Xã Hội. https://congthuong.vn/gia-vang-hom-nay-
1552024-vang-trong-nuoc-tiep-tuc-roi-thang-dung-vang-the-gioi-dao-chieu-tang-cao-320121.html
VietstockFinance. (n.d.). VietstockFinance – Dữ liệu tài chính và công cụ đầu tư chứng khoán.
VietstockFinance. https://finance.vietstock.vn/
