More and more Pinoys going into stock brokering

With the Philippines back on foreign investors’ radar screen and the stock market showing no signs of slowing down, the stock brokerage business is now proving to be the hottest career in town.

Michael G. Manuel, Sunlife Financial Philippines director for investments, said stock brokering has dislodged nursing as the most sought-after job in the country with brokers being pirated left and right on offers too good to refuse.

Manuel said some US and Japanese brokerage houses/investment banks are planning to buy or have already bought seats at the Philippine Stock Exchange. One of these entities, he said, is Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), a leading global corporate and investment banking firm, providing comprehensive financial advisory, capital raising, sales and trading, and financial products for users and suppliers of capital around the world.

CFSB operates more than 50 offices across more than 30 countries and six continents in has more than 10,000 employees.

“A conducive environment now exists in the country for foreign investment. It is only now that both government and the private sector are joining hands in community or economy building,” Manuel said.

He added that foreign investors are now taking a second look at the Philippines due to the perceived economic stability in the country.

With a booming stock market, hotels have been packed with foreign fund managers and businessmen plotting new investment strategies, he said.

Last year, the benchmark stock index PSEi surged 42.3 percent and has already grown 11.8 percent since the beginning of the year on the back of a steadily growing economy, a stronger peso, an improving fiscal budget deficit, stable interest rates and robust remittances from overseas Filipino workers.

“This rise is not a bubble. It is based on really strong fundamentals,“ Manuel said.

With the bulls clearly on the charge, analysts point out that massive inflows of new money into the market make it hard to foresee when the rally will stop.

“For the first time, the stock market is able to reflect the country’s improving economy. It proves the ongoing securities reform has fundamentally changed the stock market from a gambling house to a normally functioning market based on true value,” an analyst at a foreign brokerage house said.

Manuel said the index is likely to continue to climb and is seen to reach 3,800 by the end of the year. He said the market will even, “get a higher kick” in 2008.