PSE set to cut minimum investment size to P100

MANILA  -The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) will cut the minimum investment size for stocks to as low as P100 and allow the listing of foreign depositary receipts on the bourse by 2024 in a bid to arrest the sharp slide in trading activity, which touched a 14-year low earlier this week.

PSE chief operating officer Roel Refran said new initiatives were aimed at reviving retail investor participation, accounting for just 19 percent of volume at the end of September this year.

“We are really coming up with a lot of initiatives to bring it to a more active level, the 19 percent is very much below our targets,” Refran said during the PSE Star Investor Day conference.

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While institutional investors were doing more of the heavy lifting, overall market activity continued to deteriorate, with value turnover down 8.8 percent as of end-September, data from the PSE showed.

Last Nov. 13, daily value turnover plummeted to P1.37 billion—a level unseen since 2009, said Dan Villegas, equity dealer with Maybank Securities. By the first quarter of 2024, the PSE plans to cut the minimum board lot size, which can accommodate investments as modest as P100.

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Refran said the introduction of depositary receipts (DR) by the second half of next year will also allow local investors to trade foreign securities listed on the PSE.

“Instead of [Filipino] investors going out and asking their private wealth or fund managers to trade and transact in other markets we’re reversing the flow here via DRs,” he said.

By 2025, the PSE will launch index futures with the Philippine benchmark index as the underlying asset, Refran said.