Capital markets ‘doing very well’ despite pandemic — PSE report

Despite the economic shock triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippine equities market remained stable, according to a report by the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).

In a report during a recent meeting of the industry overseer Capital Market Development Council (CMDC), the local bourse operator said the local stock market dipped by only 9.4%, closing at 7,080.62 as of December 2 this year, compared to the 2019 finish of 7,815.26.

PSE president Ramon Monzon said the equities market has been steadily recovering since its unavoidable sharp decline to 4,623 in March when the government began imposing a Luzon-wide lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.

“We are now at 7,080, and, in fact, the market is doing very well especially for the month of November,” Monzon said.

“We have gone up, just for the month of November, our markets are up by 10.7%,” he said.

The local bourse chief said the average trading volume per day was worth P12.66 billion in November, compared to the daily average of P6.7 billion over the January-October period.

“This brings our year-to-date average trading volume to P7.19 billion, just 1.4% below the 2020 average trading volume,” Monzon said.

“Trading was weakened by the pandemic but has regained ground in the past two months,” he said.

Co-chaired by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, lawyer Benedicta Du-Baladad of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairperson Emilio Aquino, the CMDC is a coordinating body tasked to facilitate the development of the Philippine capital market.

“Looking at all these numbers, from a capital market’s point of view, it would seem that the COVID 19 effect is not such a big bump on the road as other people make it out to be when we talk about the economy,” Dominguez said in response to Monzon’s report.

Monzon said companies have continued to turn towards the equities market in raising funds this year, with about P90 billion in capital generated from January to October.

This represents a slight drop from the P101.59 billion in capital raised for the whole 2019, he said.

“Capital raising at the PSE has been robust in 2020 in spite of the pandemic,” Monson said, citing Converge  ICT Solutions, Megawide Construction Corp. (Megawide), San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and MerryMart Consumer Corp. (MMSC) as among the companies that have raised funds through the stock market.

Cemex Philippines (CEMEX), AC Energy Philippines (AC Energy), Century Properties Group (CPG), Altus Property Ventures Inc. (APVI), and Ayala Land AREIT Inc. also raised capital this year through the PSE, he said.

In the pipeline are the pending application from AC Energy, the issuance of preferred shares by Cebu Pacific, and follow-on offerings by Italpinas Development Corp. (IDC) and  8990 Holdings Inc., the PSE chief said.

Monzon said the PSE also expects upcoming offerings from DoubleDragon’s Real Estate Investment Trust  (REIT),  Robinson Land Corp. (RLC) Office REIT, Megaworld  REIT and the Ortigas Land REIT. — RSJ, GMA News