Foreign brokers dominated PSE trading in 2012

Foreign stock brokers dominated local stock market trades in 2012, reflecting the surge in net foreign buying drawn by the Philippine growth story last year.

Based on the 2012 Brokers’ ranking reported by the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday, the top five brokers were foreign-affiliated: Deutsche Regis Partners Inc., UBS Securities Philippines Inc., CLSA Philippines Inc., Maybank ATR KimEng Securities Inc. and Macquarie Capital Securities Inc.

Ranked sixth to 10th in terms of volume share last year were Philippine Equity Partners Inc. (PEP), COL Financial Group Inc., DBP-DAIWA Securities SMBC Philippines Inc., JP Morgan Securities Philippines Inc. and SB Equities.

Of these, PEP, COL and SB Equities are local brokers. PEP is a local broker but has an existing partnership with BoFA Merrill Lynch.

Other top brokers are: Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) Ltd. Philippines (11th), BDO Securities Corp. (12th), Papa Securities Corp. (13th), Abacus Securities Corp. (14th) and BPI Securities Corp. (15th).

Completing the top 20 list are the following: First Metro Securities Brokerage Corp. (16th), BA Securities Inc. (17th), Wealth Securities (18th), Asiasec Equities Inc. (19th) and DW Capital Inc. (20th).

The local stock market attracted P109.98 billion in net foreign buying last year, close to double the level a year ago, as the domestic economy outperformed expectations amid a string of global economic uncertainties. Capital raised at the local bourse reached a new record at P219.07 billion in 2012, 103.8 percent higher than the amount raised last year from various capital-raising activities such as initial public offerings, follow-on offerings, stock rights and private placements.

With the country back on the global radar screen for the first time in many years, net foreign buying position sharply increased last year from the P56.52 billion level in 2011. This helped fuel the 33-percent rise in the Philippine Stock Exchange index last year.  Doris C. Dumlao