Online accounts grow 28.5% in 2017

THE Stock Market Investor Profile Report for 2017 of The Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE) showed a 28.5 percent growth in online stock market accounts to 388,864 from 302,516 in 2016.

Increased trading activity was also seen in online accounts as they made up for 11.0 percent of total trading value in 2017, from 9.3 percent the year before. Likewise, value turnover from online accounts rose by 12.9 percent to P372.06 billion from P329.64 billion in 2016.

“Clearly, more and more investors now prefer to trade and invest in the stock market through online trading systems. We hope to further grow the number of stockbrokerage firms that offer online trading services so that the stock market becomes even more accessible to everyone,” said PSE president and CEO Ramon S. Monzon.

In terms of total stock market accounts, the count for 2017 increased by 12.4 percent to 868,810 from the 773,187 in 2016.

The total number of stock market accounts saw a 12.7 percent increase in retail accounts to 841,532 and a 2.6 percent rise in institutional investors to 27,278.

Percentage-wise, retail and institutional accounts covered 96.9 percent and 3.1 percent of total accounts, respectively. Local investors comprised 98.3 percent of the total accounts while the remaining 1.7 percent consisted of foreign investors.

The report also provided insights on the demographics of the Philippine stock market’s retail investors. The stock market still has more male investors, as they made up 54.6 percent of total retail investors. Female investors accounted for 45.4 percent of the retail investor population, which is a tad higher than 2016’s 44.9 percent.