THE Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE) saw a surge in the number of online stock market accounts last year, hitting 11% of the total trading value for the year, according to the Stock Market Investor Profile Report for 2017.
In a statement, the PSE said online accounts in the stock market grew by 28.5% to 388,864 in 2017, versus the 302,516 accounts recorded in the year before. Value turnover from these accounts stood at P372.06 billion, 12.9% higher than in 2016.
“Clearly, more and more investors now prefer to trade and invest in the stock market through online trading systems. We hope to further grow the number of stock brokerage firms that offer online trading services so that the stock market becomes even more accessible to everyone,” PSE President and Chief Executive Officer Ramon S. Monzon said in a statement.
More than half of these online retail investors were aged 30 to 44, consistent with the trend seen in previous years. Investors aged 18 to 29 accounted for 22.5%, while 45- to 59-year-olds comprised 17.9%. Those aged 60 and above provided the remaining 5.9% for total online accounts.
In terms of annual income, over 50% of the online investors earned less than P500,000. Less than a third earned between P500,000 to P1 million a year, while 15.8% made more than P1 million per year.
Online investors coming from Metro Manila made up 52.4% of the total online accounts, 29% came from Luzon. Only 8.5% and 5.7% came from Visayas and Mindanao, respectively.
“Admittedly, we have more ground to cover. We hope that through our continued market education initiatives as well as the marketing efforts of our accredited stockbrokers, we will be able to encourage more individuals, based here or abroad, to invest in our stock market,” Mr. Monzon said.
Meanwhile, the total number of stock market accounts for retail investors went up by 12.7% to 841,532, accounting for 96.9% of the total accounts in the exchange. Institutional investors provided the remaining 3.1% or 27,278, which went up 2.6%.
Only 1.7% of the total accounts were owned by foreign investors, while 98.3% were owned by locals.
Retail investors from Luzon grew to 20.8% from 16.4% of total accounts last year. There were also more investors seen in Visayas and Mindanao, with the former growing to 8.2% of total accounts versus 6.2% in 2016. Mindanao accounted for 4.5%, against 2.9% the year before.
“I attribute the growth in retail investors outside Metro Manila to the streamlined account opening processes of online stockbrokerage firms. I also think that the broker expo feature of our very successful road shows in Davao and Iloilo last year helped bump up the numbers because road show attendees were able to open stock market accounts with stockbrokerage firms at the event venue,” Mr. Monzon said.
Metro Manila still had the largest share of retail investors at 64.2%, although slipping from 70.6% in 2016. — Arra B. Francia

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