POGO stocks dumped in 1st day of trading after ban

As reported yesterday (MB link), President Marcos has banned POGOs and instructed PAGCOR to phase them out completely by the end of the year. That announcement was made after the close on Monday, so the first opportunity for POGO stocks (and POGO-adjacent stocks) to react was during the trading session yesterday. The biggest POGO-related declines were in DoubleDragon [DD 11.30 ?5.2%; 442% avgVol] and its REIT subsidiary, DDMP [DDMPR 1.10 ?5.2%; 1236% avgVol], but other developer/REIT pairings saw significant selling pressure in the early hours, like Filinvest Land [FLI 0.69 unch; 76% avgVol] and Filinvest REIT [FILRT 3.01 ?2.6%; 40% avgVol]. Ayala Land [ALI 31.60 ?0.9%; 113% avgVol] and Robinsons Land [RLC 14.98 ?2.1%; 24% avgVol] were down, as were SM Prime [SMPH 29.90 ?2.5%; 80% avgVol] and Megaworld [MEG 1.84 ?1.6%; 134% avgVol]. There may have been something of a “flight to safety” in the REIT sector, as AREIT [AREIT 36.90 ?1.2%; 89% avgVol] pumped and some of the non-POGO stocks like Citicore Renewable Energy REIT [CREIT 2.85 ?0.3%; 77% avgVol] saw an uptick in buying interest. 

MB BOTTOM-LINE: The carnage was considerable for Injap Sia and Tony Caktiong’s DD and DDMPR, but it’s not like a potential POGO ban hasn’t been kicking around in the halls of power for years now. There’s been plenty of notice. If I were a shareholder of DD (I’ve never owned this stock) or especially of DDMPR (I owned this stock for 6 months following the IPO) I’d be expecting my management team to put out some kind of communication to shareholders to help contextualize this news for existing investors. It’s also important for these companies to make the case to other non-shareholder investors, too, as the price action of the stock depends on bringing more people into the tent. Past behavior would suggest that DDMPR will likely remain silent here, which I think is another example of this management team neglecting its responsibilities to its shareholders and the perception of the company.

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