At the stock market, SSS’ buying binge soothes the panic

The Social Security System (SSS) purchased P92 million worth of shares of stock in the local bourse last Friday after Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III ordered state-run pension funds to help arrest the skidding stock market.

Dominguez noted the SSS’ estimated average daily buying in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index in March prior to Friday was only P55.5 million. Dominguez chairs the Social Security Commission, the top policy-making body of the SSS.The head of the Duterte administration’s economic team had ordered the SSS and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to take advantage of the low stock prices and support the stock market by doubling at least their daily average purchase volumes compared to last year.

Markets all over the world have plunged in recent days amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The new coronavirus, which first appeared in China, causes the COVID-19.

Dominguez said even if the SSS and the GSIS ramped up purchases, their exposures to PSE-traded equities remained below the limits imposed by their respective charters.

The SSS’ investments in equities at end-September 2019 stood at P95.7 billion, or 18 percent, of its P542.4-billion total investment level, latest data on its website showed.

For the GSIS, up to 25 percent of its investment portfolio can be placed in equities. —BEN O. DE VERA INQ