The year 2013 finally ended this week, wrapping up a rough, turbulent year for stock investors.
On Friday, December 27, the market had its last trading day of the year. The 30-company Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed at 5,889.83 points — up a meager 0.20% from the previous day’s trading.
The year 2011 gave stock investors and stock traders a mix of highs and lows. The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi), for one, booked a modest year-on-year gain of only 4.07% for the entire year 2011. This was in stark contrast with the PSEi’s 1-year return of 37.60% in 2010 and 63.00% in 2009.
But then again, this slight uptick seems to hide the tumultuous fluctuations in stock prices that occurred in the past year. Today, the last trading day of the year, the PSEi closed at 4,371.96. Compare this with the PSEi’s lowest level of the year of 3,705.18 recorded on February 28, 2011 and its all-time high level of 4,563.65 registered on August 2, 2011.
The same whirlwind of prices was seen in several individual stocks traded on the local bourse. We have summarized below the best- and worst-performing stocks comprising the PSE index, in terms of 1-year gain (or loss) in 2011.
It’s finally happening. After more than 2 years of planning to extend trading hours, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) will implement starting next week an additional one (1) hour before fully extending trading hours to 3:30 p.m. by January 2012.
The PSE announced that effective Monday, October 3, stock trading in the local bourse will last until 1 p.m. Currently the Philippines is one of the countries in the world with the shortest trading hours — that is, only 2 and 1/2 hours, running from 9:30 a.m. until 12:10 p.m.
The move to have longer time for trading is meant to prepare the local stock market with the planned cross-border trading with other Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia.
