First Metro Index to track Philippine consumer stocks

Investment management firm First Metro Asset Management Inc. (FAMI) and global index provider MSCI Inc. launched on Tuesday a new index that will track consumer-related stocks in the Philippines.

The First Metro Index is composed of 18 stocks with huge revenue exposure to industries that benefit from consumption spending such as transportation, manufacturing, communications, mall development, financial services, and food and beverage.
 
The new index is a customized subset of the MSCI Philippines investible market index, MSCI client coverage officer Rajarshi Sen said during a briefing in Makati City.

"We wanted to provide the Philippine investment community with an index that would be aligned to the main drivers of the Philippine economic growth," FAMI president Augusto Cosio said in the same briefing.

Cosio cited the top 10 stocks of the First Metro Index, namely SM Prime Holdings Inc., Ayala Land Inc., BDO Unibank Inc., Universal Robina Corp., Ayala Corp., Jollibee Foods Corp., Metro Pacific Investments Corp., GT Capital Holdings Inc., and Bank of the Philippine Islands.

The stocks are highly liquid, fundamentally sound and tradable, and could guide investors seeking to invest in the "country's consumption-theme."

"We contracted and partnered with MSCI. We have to have to have index constituents that were highly investible by global standards," Cosio said, noting that FAMI used MSCI's methodology in coming up with its own index.

"The Philippine stock market is the third best performing in the world with a year to date gain of about 23.9 percent. Given this market landscape, we believe this is the best time to launch this index which will reflect investor perspective of Philippine consumer spending," he added. — VDS, GMA News