Filipinos urged to invest in stock market

MANILA — An online stock and mutual fund platform is encouraging more Filipinos to invest their hardearned money in stocks, and play a key role in the growth of the country’s capital markets.

Dino Bate, President and Chief Executive Officer of COL Financial Group Inc., attributed the weakening stock market to global trends where liquidity used to lift markets were slowly withdrawn, noting it’s an irrational movement of money.

“For this year’s investors, this is a chance to be able to buy stocks at a much lower level and we know all these will pass and eventually the real values will again emerge. This is a chance to make high returns when markets are at this period,” he said in an interview last week.

“I think 2018 will be challenging. It has nothing to do with the state of the nation. I think the country is doing very well, there is no problem with earnings,” he said.

Bate noted his group is continuously educating Filipino retail investors about pouring in their money into the stock market.

Bate said he thus expects that Filipino retail investors will have equal participation with foreign investors in the stock market in three to five years, as they educate more Filipinos to invest in the capital market.

“So the retail investors being minority investors in the country will slowly be of the past, and they will now be a dominant force in the growth of the capital markets,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bate said the

BEIJING — The biggest global auto show of the year showcases China’s ambitions to become a leader in electric cars and the industry’s multibillion-dollar scramble to roll out models that appeal to price-conscious but demanding Chinese drivers.

Auto China 2018, which opens this week, follows Beijing’s decision to allow Group is looking at introducing to the market new investment products and establish more investor centers this year.

“It’s an investment product that our clients can use as part of their investment full foreign ownership of Chinese automakers in a move to make the industry more flexible as it promotes electrics.

The ruling Communist Party has transformed China into the biggest market for electrics with billions of dollars in subsidies to producers and buyers. Now, Beijing is winding down that support and shifting the financial burden to automakers with sales quotas that push them to develop models Chinese drivers want to buy.

That is reflected in the auto show lineup: Global and Chinese brands including General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG and Nissan Motor Co. plan to display dozens of electrics and hybrids, from luxurious SUVs to compacts priced as low as 152,000 yuan ($24,000).

Communist leaders see electric cars as both a way to clean up smog-choked cities and a key ingredient in plans to transform China into a global competitor in an array of technology fields from robotics to solar power to biotech.

“Just in the last two or three years, China rose from being a very small player in the global EV market to be nearly 50 percent of sales in 2017,” said Christopher Robinson, who follows the industry for Lux Research.

“It attracted nearly every automaker in the world,” said Robinson.

Starting in 2019, automakers will be required to earn credits by selling electrics or else buy them from portfolio. What we are trying to do here is always to find ways for clients to have access to these products that they can generate income from it,” he said.

As of end-2017, COL had 249,000 accounts, indicating competitors. More stringent fuel efficiency standards will require a big share of each brand’s sales to be nongasoline models.

Global automakers say electrics should account for 35 to over 50 percent of their China sales by 2025.

“There is huge potential for vehicle electrification here,” said Roland Krueger, chairman of Infiniti Motor Co., Nissan’s luxury brand.

Chinese sales of electrics and gasoline-electric hybrids rose 154 percent in the first quarter over a year earlier to 143,000 units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. That compares with sales of just under 200,000 for all of last year in the United States, the No. 2 market.

GM plans to display five all-electric vehicles including a concept Buick SUV it says can travel 600 kilometers (375 miles) on one charge, plus a hybrid Cadillac XT5 28E.

The Detroit automaker, which vies with VW for the status of China’s biggest brand, is launching 10 electrics or hybrids in China from in 2016 to 2020.

VW is due to launch 15 electrics and hybrids in the next two to three years as part of a 10 billion euro ($12 billion) development plan announced in November.

Nissan is unveiling an electric model at the auto show designed for China and will display an updated version of its Leaf and an electric concept car.

The Japanese automaker a 21-percent growth from 205,000 the previous year.

COL was able to achieve this growth due to the steady stream of referrals from existing clients, as well as through the establishment of new investor centers outside also plans to develop a lower-priced electric with a local partner, state-owned Dongfeng Motor Co. Two more versions of that are to be sold under their jointly owned Venucia brand.

China’s BYD Auto, the biggest global maker of electrics by volume with 2017 sales of 113,669 units, plans to unveil two new hybrid SUVs and an electric concept car. The company also plans to display nine other hybrid and plug-in electric models.

Infiniti plans to display a concept sedan, the Q Inspiration, that Krueger said will be the basis for future electric models.

The sleek Q Inspiration has no air-drawing engine, and thus no front grill — a change Krueger said was suggested by Chinese designers at Infiniti’s Beijing studio.

The car has the roomier back seat that has become standard among luxury brands that want to appeal to Chinese customers who have a driver and ride in back.

“The first car is going to cater specifically to the needs of the Chinese market,” said Krueger.

Ford Motor Co. has announced a “product onslaught” this month for China that includes at least 15 electrified vehicles and 35 other models through 2025. Ford’s first plug-in hybrid in China, the Mondeo Energi, went on sale last month.

Washington and other trading partners have been irked by the Chinese controls that required global Metro Manila, namely in Davao, Cebu and Ilocos.

Bate said they aim to establish two more investor centers in Metro Manila, and one in the province in 2018. (PNA) automakers to work through state-owned local partners and imposed other restrictions.

Automakers complained joint ventures were cumbersome and expensive but complied because they gained access to a market that passed the United States in 2009 as the world’s biggest.

Last year’s sales of SUVs, sedans and minivans totaled 24.7 million units, compared with 17.2 million for the United States.

The Cabinet’s planning agency announced last week Beijing will loosen those controls by allowing full foreign ownership in the industry, starting with electric vehicle producers this year. Limits for commercial vehicles would end in 2020 and for all passenger vehicles in 2022.

That would end a 50 percent cap on foreign ownership of an auto venture, a limit that required automakers to share technology with potential competitors, adding to President Donald Trump’s trade complaints against Beijing.

“Now you’re going to see the difference between the partners that you want and partners imposed on you,” said Carlos Ghosn, chairman of the Renault-NissanMitsubishi alliance.

Ghosn said his companies were happy with their Chinese partners. But he said with electrics, autonomous driving and other innovations give companies a new chance to consider a partnership or work independently.