Foreign stockbrokers still dominate trading

Although foreign brokers continue to dominate trading at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), more local brokers are now in the top 20 brokers list this year.

Data from the PSE’s Corporate Communications Department show that in the first 10 months of 2002, almost half or nine of the top 20 brokers are domestic entities. Although there are no comparable data for the same period last year, it can be noted that for the full year of 2001, only five local brokers landed in the list.

Still, the dominate of the foreign players at the bourse remain pronounced as eight of them paced the entire field, led by Swiss-based UBS Warburg Securities.

For the first time, UBS made it to the top spot with 11.61 percent of total traders, aggregating to P295.3 billion in 10 months. ING Securities, the local unit of the Dutch financial giant, landed in second place with 9.69 percent of total turnover while another Netherlands-based conglemorate, ABN Amro Asia Securities, ranked third with 9.43 percent.

The next five players were Deutsche Regis Partners, J.P. Morgan Securities, Philippine Equity Partners (the local conduit of Merill Lynch), ATR-Kim Eng Securities, and CLSA Philippines.

Combined, the eight, foreign brokers made up more than half or 57.66 percent of the total value turnover during the period.

Meanwhile, only two local brokerage houses made it to the top 10 list – Abacus Securities and BPI Securities with 2.21 percent and 2.11 percent of aggregate trades, respectively.

Last year, only one local broker, BPI Securities Corp., made it to the list, landing eighth with nearly four percent of total trades. In 1999, five local brokers were in the top 10 list while three made the cut in 2000.

Out of a total of 184 registered brokerage firms, there are now only around 138 brokers in operation, with some barely eking out trades as daily turnover at the bourse remained at lethargic levels of about P300 million.