PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of share repurchase announcements on the stock price of rival firms in the same industry in Vietnam during 2010-2017.Design/methodology/approachBoth event study and t-test are employed to test the effects of share repurchase announcements on rival firms. In addition, cross-sectional analysis by ordinary least square regression is also applied for investigating the heterogeneous effects due to information transfer.FindingsThe finding shows that stock repurchase announcements result in a positive and significant valuation effect for both announcing firms and rival firms in Vietnam. Furthermore, the degree of signal to the industry is conditional on the degree of signal about the announcing firms as a contagious effect. Intra-industry effects are more favorable when profit performance of rival firms is good and when leverage of rival firms is low.Practical implicationsRival firms can seize opportunities surrounding share repurchase announcements in the same industry in Vietnam. However, due to firm characteristics, intra-industry effects of stock repurchases differ among industries.Originality/valueBy examining different methods, the paper attributes valuable results to investigate the stock price behavior of rival firms in the same industry when firms announce stock repurchase in Vietnam.