Quick takes from around the market

1. Bloomberry [BLOOM 9.58, up 2.8%; 56% avgVol] [link] reported a Q3 net income of P1.85-B (up 20% y/y), and a 9M net income of P8.3 billion (up 106% y/y), driven by a 19.7% y/y increase in hotel, food, and beverage revenues. BLOOM’s gaming revenue was relatively flat, but the 15% increase in visitors help add to the company’s non-gaming revenue streams.

MB quick take: Gambling is “resilient” to economic downturns, so BLOOM’s gaming revenue has been largely insulated from our struggling economy and sky-high inflation. That said, it is interesting to see the uptick in visitors to BLOOM’s sites, and the subsequent uptick in visitor spending on accommodations, food, and drink. That’s the casino/resort concept in full splendor.
 

2. South Korea (KOR) [link] banned short selling until June 2024, after regulators there found evidence of “massive illegal naked short-selling by global investment banks and circumstances of additional illegal activities”. KOR regulators said that those illegal activities “undermine fair price formation and hurt market confidence”. The Korea Exchange was up almost 4% on the news.

 

MB Quick Take: As you can imagine, there were a lot of traders making the obvious joke for the PSE (“they should ban short selling to get that sweet market pop!”). I don’t know if the regulators’ assessment of the problem is accurate, or if the blame for the problem lies at the feet of “global investment banks”, but I just wanted to point out that regardless of what is happening, we don’t have to worry about similar problems here. Our system does not allow “naked shorting”, which is where traders are able to sell short without borrowing the underlying stock, and... nobody can short anything because the PSE botched the launch.
 

3. Alternergy [ALTER 0.85, up 2.4%; 68% avgVol] [link] announced that it raised P1.45 billion from the sale of 100 million Series 2 preferred shares to Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) for a price of P14.50/share. ALTER’s shareholders approved the reclassification of the company’s preferred shares into two series (Series 1 and non-voting Series 2) at a special Stockholder’s Meeting a month ago.

 

MB quick take: ALTER is aggressively cashing up to fund the development of its renewable energy projects. It set the groundwork for this preferred shares sale back in October, which is around the same time that the company started a process with banks to acquire P12 billion in project financing debt. Regardless of where rates are, there’s a gold rush in the renewable energy supply market right now that ALTER is hoping will fill its sails for many years to come.

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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.