INVESTING Online stock market accounts up by 28% in 2016
Online accounts went up by 27.8 percent to 302,516 from 236,669 in 2015, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) said in its annual report on stock market accounts.
Growth in the total number of stock market accounts, which include both online and traditional accounts, was at 8.5 percent, from 712,549 accounts in 2015 to 773,187 at the end of 2016.
“Technology has played a big role in the growth of our investor base over the years. We are pleased to see that more Filipinos have continued to adopt online trading to invest in the stock market,” said PSE President and CEO Ramon S. Monzon.
Investors with online accounts trade themselves, typing in their buy or sell orders on their online trading platform, while investors with accounts in traditional stockbrokerage firms have to call their broker to place their orders.
The minimum required amount to open an account and the broker’s fee of online stockbrokerage firms are usually lower compared with their traditional counterparts. Online investors are typically provided research materials by their online broker while investors of traditional firms also get research reports and they can discuss their investing options with their broker.
The continued growth in online accounts also translated to higher trading activity.
In 2016, 53.7 percent of total market transactions, measured in terms of number of trades, were accounted for by online accounts.
More than half now
This was the first year that online transactions were responsible for more than half of the market’s total transactions. Online trades registered a 41.4 percent growth in value turnover, which translated to a 9.3 percent share in the market’s total value turnover.
Of the total stock market accounts, 98.2 percent or 759,952 were held by local investors while the remaining 1.8 percent or 13,595 were accounts of foreign investors.
The PSE’s 2016 Stock Market Investor Profile survey showed that among the retail investors using online and traditional brokering, 43.7 percent earn less than P500,000 annually. This was followed by investors earning above P1 million at 31.1 percent, while investors with an annual income of P500,000 to P1 million made up 25.2 percent.
Close to 40 percent of investors were aged 30 to 44. The 45- to 59-year-old investors covered 26.4 percent of the total count and those who are 60 and above composed 19.3 percent. Young millennials or those between 18 and 29 accounted for 14.8 percent of investors.
A total of 96.1 percent of retail investors are based locally while the rest are based overseas. Most retail investors continue to be in Metro Manila, which accounted for 70.6 percent of investors. Luzon cornered 16.4 percent of investors, with Visayas and Mindanao making up for 6.2 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively. Overseas investors composed 3.9 percent of retail accounts.