Quick Take: Ayala Corp to pay ACEN dividends and 2 more market updates
Ayala Corp [AC 687.0 0.1%] [link] will pay ACEN share dividend on Monday. The property dividend in this case will be shares of ACEN [ACEN 8.37 4.8%], with AC shareholders receiving 3 ACEN shares for every 1 AC share owned as of the Record Date (May 27, 2022).
MB Quick Take: This distribution is probably timed to keep ACEN’s public float high enough to remain in the PSEi Total Return index.
FMETF [FMETF 103.2 2.2%] [link] was halted for the majority of Tuesday’s session after it was noticed that the “iNav” value was not updating properly. The problem was apparently resolved just after 2pm on Tuesday, but the exchange decided to keep the halt in place until Wednesday morning.
MB Quick Take: iNav stands for “intraday net asset value”, and it represents the total real-time value of the shares that are owned by FMETF. The iNav is a crucial point of reference that traders can use to value shares of FMETF, so it’s important for this metric to update properly to maintain the integrity of the trades that could occur in reliance on that data. This is the third time that the iNav has gone rogue since September. This is happening with too much regularity. It shouldn’t be normal for the exchange to halt trading in a massive ETF to fix a price updating problem. Wherever the problem is, FMETF and the PSE need to figure this out and fix it in a way that doesn’t make this such a common occurrence.
MB Casino Tourism Index [link] gained 4.9% on the day that the market got info that Macau’s casinos were being directed to “diversify” their businesses away from gambling. Macau is a “special administrative region” of China, and had been a top-choice global destination for high-rollers from China and other parts of the world before COVID restrictions obliterated the industry. The casinos in Macau have been asked to invest $15 billion over the next 10 years, with 90% of that money having to go to non-gaming initiatives. Macau will need to derive over 30% of its income from non-gaming sources, up from the pre-COVID mark of around 5%.
MB Quick Take: It’s tempting to think that what’s going on is that China wants to build something of a “Las Vegas of the East” type of thing, where the destination is itself the destination, where there’s a little something for every person, whether that’s gambling, eating, sports, or shows. But as the article points out, Chinese gamblers just do not respond to non-gaming attractions like Americans do, and Macau-based casinos have had a hard time monetizing effort spent on non-gaming attractions. Our local casino tourism firms had a good day, with Bloomberry [BLOOM 8.5 5.5%] up 5.5%, Suntrust Resort Holdings [SUN 1.0 7.6%] up 7.6%, and Belle Corp [BEL 1.3 5.7%] up 5.7%, on the hopes that Macau’s lack of focus on gaming could pave the way for our own casinos (and the whole infrastructure that is built to facilitate this) to attract some of the Chinese whales that have been de-prioritized by this directive.
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Merkado Barkada's opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any particular stock. These daily articles are not updated with new information, so each investor must do his or her own due diligence before trading, as the facts and figures in each particular article may have changed.
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