PSE’s trading hours issue still at standstill

Two months after the latest poll results among brokers, the issue of extending the trading hours at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) remains at a standstill as the board of directors is still divided on how to implement the brokers’ opinions.

In their report to PSE members, the opposition bloc in the 15-man PSE board raised their concern that the ruling majority–made up of eight non-brokers and two other brokers led by incumbent chairman Vivian Yuchengo–"seemed to have taken lightly the concerns of the majority of the broker-stockholders on this issue as there is still talk that the 2:00 to 4:00 afternoon trading schedule, a proposal of the minority foreign brokers, would eventually be imposed."

In an official survey by the PSE’s Floor Trading and Arbitration Committee (FTAC) conducted in April, more than half or 51 percent of the brokers objected to a further extension and opted for the status quo of the 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. session. Only 21.5 percent favored the rescheduling from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.; 19 percent voted for the slight change from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.; while 8.5 percent did not indicate any preference.

But the five opposition brokers, led by Roberto Coyiuto Jr., accused PSE president Ernest Leung of "highhandedly" ignoring the results and conducted his own survey, leading to the resignation of FTAC chairman Eddie Gobing, one of the five brokers in Coyiuto’s group.

"In a meeting of the FTAC, attended by Mr. Leung, where the trading schedule was tackled, the FTAC members made the suggestion that it was not advisable to include in the survey the matter of optional trading hours since it was their opinion that the rule on trading hours should be applied uniformly to all trading participants," the group said.

Aside from Coyiuto and Gobing, the other broker-directors who opposed the scheme include Harry Liu, Federico Lim and Edwin Luy.

In another survey held last August, a slim majority or 45 out of the 115 brokers polled (39.1 percent), said they were not in favor of the afternoon extension while a close 43 (37.4 percent) said they are open to the proposal.

The remaining 27 brokers, or a significant 23.5 percent, were undecided as they did not indicate any preference. The survey had an 83 percent response rate with 115 out of the 138 member brokers participating.

Meanwhile, Leung clarified that contrary to previous news reports, the Exchange would be conducting a test-run on off-site trading only, and not the extension of trading hours until 4 p.m.

The pilot test, which will run for about a month, will be done through a Virtual Private Network (VPN), a secure and real-time system that allows trading participants to connect to the trading system of the Exchange at a lower cost even from remote places.

The VPN is a third-party Internet type transport that will extend the PSE’s network to the offices of the trading participants, allowing them to operate their offices without the need to travel and deploy personnel at the trading floor.