Online trading portal urges Pinoys to invest in stocks

CEBU, Philippines - One of the country’s leading online trading portal is encouraging Filipinos to invest their hard-earned cash into the stock market as this investment instrument is for everybody who wants to build-up their savings with a higher yield.

COL Financial Group, Inc. is now intensifying its bid to make stock market investment available to every Filipino across social and financial standing, with an initial investment of at least P5,000, one can already start building wealth for the long term.

“All our lives we’ve been told to invest or put our money in the bank. If this mindset will continue, you have to work the rest of your life,” said COL Financial president and chief executive officer Conrado F. Bate.

In a press conference, Bate said that while Filipinos are made to think or believe that stock investments is “only for the rich”, he said his company is going to change this mindset by attracting more Filipinos to buy a stake of profitable companies, and be a part-owner and earn money faster.

Just like other stock market brokerage now, COL Financial is also targetting the young professionals who want to have financial freedom early, but are “thirsty” for knowledge on where to start building their wealth while working hard.

In investing into stock, an initial investment of P5,000 for instance, will give the investor an estimate of P20 million in 10 years, if participation in the stock market is consistent and active.

“Time is the key in the stock market investment. It is not a short term or medium term outlay,” Bate said adding that savings put in the stock market are intended for long term.

Today, Bate said the strongest sectors that provide good profit margins are consumer or retail sectors, like SM Holdings; banking sector, property and real estate.

With today’s technology development, where information is available easily, a stock market investor can easily spot where to put his money on, as publicly-listed companies are highly regulated and are very transparent in their disclosures to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

He said the reason why, more seasoned stock market investors from other countries are now putting their money in the Philippine stock market is because they believe in the country’s sustaining growth in the long term.

He said COL’s thrust is to encourage more Filipinos to be part of the vibrant economic growth of the country, and that investing into stock market highly recommended.

Bate and other officials from the COL Financial Group were in Cebu recently to drum up interest of Cebuanos on stock market investing.

“One of our major objectives going forward is to expand our products and services so that we can better address the needs of our existing clients and other Filipino investors,” said Bate.

By June this year, COL customers will be able to access a variety of professionally managed funds online such as fixed income funds, equity funds here and abroad as well as invest local the index equity funds from various notes worth financial institutions. (FREEMAN)