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PSE to move to 'floorless trading'


The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is set to close down its trading floor and shift to "floorless trading," citing technological advancements and the needs of the investing public.

According to PSE president and chief executive officer Ramon Monzon, the trading floor will remain operational until June 24, after which trading will be purely digital.

Monzon said that there were previously 85 brokers that had operations on the trading floor, but only 29 of them renewed their leases after the pandemic. On any given day, there are only about eight to 10 trading participants.

“It has, I guess, reflected the fact that we don’t really need a trading floor. In the ASEAN region, we’re the only market that has the trading floor,” he said in an interview on ANC.

Moving forward, Monzon said the space will be enhanced for bell ringing, listing and anniversary ceremonies, while a portion will be for offices.

“We’ll probably be converting that to office space, relocate some of our offices outside the principal offices, so that we could rent out the spaces on the sixth floor and the 10th floor,” he explained.

In an earlier advisory, Monzon said the trading floor will be permanently closed once the pullout of trading participants that maintain trading booths is completed.

“The shift to digitalization and automation, driven partly by the pandemic, has resulted in trading participants now conducting their trading activities off-site,” Monzon said.

“Under the circumstances and the continuous evolution of trading operations in global markets, the Exchange has decided to permanently close the trading floor and migrate to floorless trading,” he added.

The PSE reverted back to a five-hour trading schedule in March, after a month of implementing shortened trading hours due to the surge in COVID-19 cases earlier this year.

The main PSE index closed Thursday up by 73.59 points or 1.16% to 6,393.01. The broader All Shares index was up 25.54 points or 0.75% to 3,435.24.

More than 647.168 million shares, valued at P5.603 billion, changed hands. Decliners trumped advancers, 107 to 103, while 48 issues were unchanged.

Latest data available from the PSE showed that online investor accounts posted a 23.8% annual growth in 2021 to 1.159 million, up from 936,200 recorded in the previous year.

Online accounts made up 71.5% of total stock market accounts last year, marking a steep increase from 4.3% when the PSE started its stock market investor profile (SMIP) survey in 2008.

Local investors held most of the stock market accounts with 98.5% or 1.595 million, while their foreign counterparts held 1.5% or 24,536.

Retail investors made up 98.1% or 1.589 million of total accounts, while institutional investors accounted for 1.9% or 30,510.

“There was a notable increase last year in the number of retail investors that had no formal employment. We are glad that in spite of their employment status, these individuals earmarked their savings for investing in the stock market,” Monzon said in a separate statement.

“We welcome and encourage them to continue with their investing activities, but we wish to remind them to have an investing mindset and not a speculative one,” he added. —VBL, GMA News

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