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Philippine stocks slump 4%; down for 3rd straight day

Philippine stocks took a heavy beating yesterday, with the index dropping for the 3rd straight day to close at 4,157.03.

On Tuesday, August 10, the 30-company benchmark index Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) tumbled 4.02% from Monday’s trading, the biggest drop since March 16, 2009 when the index nosedived 4.66% to 1,769.67.

Stocks are already down 9.5% from the peak registered on August 1 this year, and the bourse’s performance is crawling back to negative territory year-to-date with the PSEi dropping 1% from the start of 2011.

IPO of Zynga, maker of FarmVille, to produce new billionaires

The dot-coms are back. In recent months, several websites have underwent initial public offering (IPO) raising billions of dollars for their owners and investors.

In May 2011, professional networking site LinkedIn went public and its price surged 109% over the IPO price on the first trading day. The company is currently valued at $9 billion.

The most-awaited tech-related IPO is no doubt Facebook. The social networking site, which boasts of more than 600 million users as of January 2011, is estimated to have a value of $50 billion.

But before the Facebook IPO craze starts, a Facebook games maker has already decided to be ahead of the game. Zynga, maker of popular Facebook games such as Farmville, Cityville and Zynga Poker, filed paperwork today paving the way for their upcoming IPO.

Is PLDT owned by foreigners?

The recent Supreme Court ruling ordering the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to look into the extent of foreign ownership in PLDT raises a very important question: Did the telecommunications giant violate the Philippine Constitution with regard to the maximum 40% foreign equity rule?

In layman’s terms, the Supreme Court is basically asking the SEC: is PLDT owned by Filipinos or by foreigners?

SC: Danding Cojuangco rightful owner of 20% of SMC

Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco is the rightful owner of the contested 20% shares of San Miguel Corporation (SMC), the Philippine Supreme Court ruled with finality today.

The Supreme Court (SC) struck down the appeal of the government, represented by the Philippine Commission on Good Governance (PCGG), saying the petitioner failed to substantiate its claim that the SMC shares were part of Cojuangco’s ill-gotten wealth allegedly acquired during the reign of ex-President Ferdinand Marcos.

Extended PSE stock trading hours

Recently there is talk again that the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) plans to extend the trading hours. Stock trading in the Philippines is one of the shortest in the world, with trading in the PSE lasting only for two and a half hours, from 9:30 am until 12 noon.

Members of the PSE board are reportedly mulling the approval of this trading extension proposal. According to an Inquirer report, “in a meeting on Wednesday, members of the board arrived at a consensus to reactivate the policy on afternoon trading to ‘align’ local markets with the rest of the world.”

The current proposal is to extend trading for 2 more hours, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. There will be a trading break after the current closing time at noon.

PSE Index (PSEi) composition, as of May 2011

Back in 2007, we wrote about the revised criteria of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) with regard to companies that will be included in the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) or Philippine Composite Index.

The PSEi, formerly known as the Phisix, is composed of 30 publicly-listed Philippine stocks selected to represent general movement of market prices and is generally regarded as one of the indicators of the general state of the Philippine economy.

(Update: New PSEi composition, as of September 2011)

Catholic Church has billions invested in BPI, Philex, San Miguel

For most of us, it’s a given that the Catholic Church is rich. Obvious proof of that are their sprawling acres of land, large Church-owned structures and buildings, and millions of pesos of cash collected from mass goers every week.

What a lot of people do not know, though, is that part of the Church’s wealth is its multi-billion peso investments in several Philippine companies. In fact, reports submitted to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) show that the Church and affiliate Catholic groups are top stockholders in companies such as the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), Philex Mining Corporation (PX), San Miguel Corporation (SMC), Ayala Corporation (AC), and Phinma Corporation (PHN), among others.

Philippine Church invested in banks, mining, construction, etc.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila, for example, owns more than 300 million shares of BPI and is the bank’s 4th largest owner.

How much are these shares worth? As of May 2011, this is valued at more than P17 billion. Yes, that’s seventeen billion pesos, with a B.

How to open a BPITrade account

Those interested to trade stocks in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) can choose to employ a live broker or an online stock brokerage firm. Either method has its own advantages and disadvantages and will be the subject of a separate article in the future.

For now, we’ll focus on online stock trading platforms. A list of available online stockbrokers in the Philippines can be found in this link.

Two of the most popular online stock trading platform providers are CitisecOnline (COL) and BPITrade. We have previously explained how to open a Citisec stock trading account. In this article, we will discuss how to open a BPITrade account.

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