DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Despite the negative investment sentiments, Filipinos investing in stock market remains relatively high, according to an official of the country’s leading online stockbroker in the Philippines.
Juanis Barredo, vice-president for sales of COL Financial Philippines, told DavaoToday that stock market investors see an opportunity for the country’s weakness in economy.
“We believe that the current market weakness is a good opportunity to invest in the Philippines at cheaper valuations. The Philippines remains one of the best growth stories long term, and we need to stay invested as that growth materializes through the years,” he said.
He pointed out that while investor sentiment has been negative lately, it would be very difficult to attribute this to solely on such turnout in relationships.
“There are other global market concerns that have contributed to this sentiment,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Asian Development Bank said that the Philippine economy is expected to outperform Southeast Asia, due to an expected increase in domestic consumption and investments.
“In Southeast Asia, growth forecasts remain unchanged at 4.5 percent in 2016 and 4.6 percent in 2017, with Malaysia and the Philippines expecting stronger growth due to a surge in domestic consumption and public and private investment, compared to lower growth forecasts in Brunei Darussalam, Myanmar, and Singapore,” the Manila-based lender said in the latest “Asian Development Outlook 2016” report.
The COL Financial official claimed that investing in the stock market is the best way to reach the financial goals.
“The Philippine stock market has the best long-term returns compared to other investments. In the past 10 years, the stock market returned 12.7 percent annually but if you had placed your money in a time deposit account, you would have only earned roughly 3 percent annually,” Barredo said.
Barredo said to keep the country’s stock market climate investment robust, a big challenge for the stockbroker is to educate Filipinos about financial literacy.
“Our biggest challenge is to bring financial literacy to all Filipinos,” he said. “COL Financial promotes financial literacy through our many regularly held seminars and our other online educational resources and tools.”
By conducting financial literacy, according to Barredo, clients were given an investment guidance for them to have a better understanding about investments.
“That’s why earlier this year, we had an investing summit in Cebu, Davao, and CDO. We invited many financial investment experts to speak, including the fund managers from the Philippines’ top 6 Mutual Fund houses,” he said.
Apart from investment conferences, COL Financial has online tutorials that the public can access in the company’s technological platforms such as Youtube, social media, among others. (davaotoday.com)
