Here’s a statistic that some of us might find interesting / surprising / depressing / revolting: The combined wealth of the fifty (50) richest Filipinos is equivalent to roughly one-fourth or 26% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
That’s according to the latest installment of Forbes Magazine’s list of the Philippines’ 50 Richest, an annual compilation of the wealthiest Filipinos based on their net worth.
If you think you’re still too young to make money, think again. Forbes Magazine‘s list of the Highest Paid Celebrities Under 30 shows that age is not a factor when it comes to earning money.
But then again, it helps that you are a global celebrity. The list below shows the Top 10 actors, actresses, singers and showbiz personalities who have earned the most last year.
Discovery World Corp., the company that owns and manages, among others, the upscale hotels Discovery Shores in Boracay and Discovery Suites in Ortigas, is set to offer to the public for the first time its shares, after the Philippine Stock Exchange recently approved its IPO application.
Most Filipino investors nowadays seem to be enamored with stocks as an investment option. This is not bad per se, but intelligent investors understand that a critical element of their overall investing strategy is portfolio diversification.
Diversification simply means investing in a variety of asset classes in order to reduce portfolio risk. Because asset classes have imperfectly correlated relationships, both in risk and return, investors gets to minimize their losses when they are diversified as compared to when they are not diversified.
What a bumpy 6-month ride it has been.
The first half of 2013 ended a week ago, closing a turbulent chapter on stock market investing that saw investors in exuberance and euphoria during the first months of the year and in panic and distress in the closing months of the first half of 2013.
Let us reminisce what happened in the last 6 months.
Citizens of the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam will now have an easier time entering Japan after the latter lifted its visa requirement to the ASEAN nations, in a bid by Japan to boost its tourism industry.
The lifting of the visa requirement means citizens of these ASEAN nations can enter Japan without much of the hassle of applying for a visa, subject to certain conditions. The rule will be effective starting July 1, 2013.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the U.S. Federal Reserve announced yesterday, June 19, that if the U.S. economy continues to improve, it will start winding down its asset-buying program and may completely end it by mid-year of 2014.
The news sent stock markets in the United States down by more than 1 percent, with the Dow Jones industrial average (DJIA) closing 205.96 points lower, or 1.34%, at 15,112.27.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500), meanwhile, closed 1.39% lower at 1,628.92, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 1.12% at 3,443.20.
Philippine stocks experienced a sharp one-day drop yesterday, recording the worst stock market performance since 2008, during the collapse of investment banking giant Lehman Brothers.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) registered a huge 6.75% loss yesterday (June 13, 2013), closing at 6,114.08 — a steep decline not seen since October 27, 2008 when local stocks dropped a whopping 12.27% as an aftermath of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
