28 new investors

TWENTY-EIGHT new investors entered the stock market last month with majority of them investing in shares of Port Denarau Marina Ltd (PDM) and Fijian Holdings Ltd (FHL). This was highlighted by the South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPX) in its monthly stock market trading report for September.

According to the SPX overall, on a year to date basis, a total of 845 new investors have now entered the Fijian stock market so far in 2019, which is a significant increase of 455.92 per cent (increase of 693 new investors) in comparison with the number of new investors seen for the same period last year.

The exchange also highlighted that 23 existing investors were seeing to be re-entering the market either increasing their existing shareholdings in listed entities and/or in some cases diversifying their investment portfolio by investing in additional securities.

A look at the trend shows that individual investors account for the major portion of investors by investor type with 79.53 per cent occupancy over the first nine months of 2019, which include private and public sector employees, farmers, students, retirees and investors who are self-employed.

Second in queue by investor type are those falling in the joint/family category which stood at 8.64 per cent on a year to date basis as at September 2019.

The exchange said while considering the month of September independently, 71.43 per cent of new investors were represented by individuals.

A study of the new investors by type of employment over the first nine months shows that 50.18 per cent of the new investors entering the stock market are those employed in the private sector.

Second in queue are those employed in the public sector with 16.69 per cent occupancy followed by students that stood at 13.37 per cent.