Trade deficit widens further in Nov
THE country's trade deficit widened in November as exports contracted anew, preliminary data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed on Wednesday.
Trade latest news
BSP boss shines spotlight on insider trading
As reported by the BusinessMirror, BSP Governor Eli Remolona [link] gave a speech at the Manila Polo Club to a meeting of Rotary Club members where he noted the problem of insider trading, citing the specific example of how “nothing moves” when listed companies report overwhelmingly positive earnings because those trades were placed ahead of the announced earnings. There are no transcripts of the speech that I can find so it’s not possible at this time to get a feel for the context of these statements from the BSP governor.
Unemployment down to 18-year low 3.6 percent in November
MANILA, Philippines — The country’s unemployment rate in November declined to its lowest level since 2005, as more jobs were created by the increased economic activity during the holiday season.
BOC revenue collection, drive vs smuggling, digitalization initiatives in higher gear in 2023
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has further intensified its revenue collection, drive against smuggling, and enhanced trade facilitation through digitalization initiatives in 2023.
PSE reveals recent outage caused by faulty connection between some brokerages and the exchange’s mobile trading app
The Philippine Stock Exchange [PSE 177.80 ?1.0%; 259% avgVol] [link] provided additional information on the serious outage that caused a 2.5-hour market-wide trading halt on January 3. In a statement posted to its website, the PSE said that the outage was caused by the “inability of at least one-third of the [brokerages] to connect to the PSE’s front-end order management system.” The PSE said that it has implemented “a design optimization” on the mobile trading application, and that they’re “working on further enhancements” to prevent the issue from happening again. According to Will Cabangon, President of AAA Equities, the issue is similar to outages that have happened in the past that were related to a certain software supplier that is used by brokerages to connect to the PSE’s order system. Mr. Cabangon said: “A bunch of brokers use the same software supplier, so when they go down, the PSE has to suspend according to the rules.” He acknowledged that the PSE has been pushing brokerages to “diversify away from this supplier”, and was hopeful that these repeated outages might finally convince some to make the switch.MB BOTTOM-LINE: The market basically requires a quorum of brokerages with viable connections to the market’s trading systems in order to remain open, such that the PSE needs to halt trading if the number of brokers with a viable connection falls below a minimum threshold. While it sounds like the problem has been identified, it sounds like this kind of problem is something that will largely remain outside of the PSE’s ultimate control so long as brokerages are free to use different software providers to interface with its system. As someone who has spent a significant portion of my life in IT and IT-related fields, I feel for the PSE’s IT team because it is in the tough spot of having to be responsible for interoperability and system uptime in an environment with external variables. They can’t just be like, “Well, that sounds like a you problem, not a me problem”: for PSE’s IT department, everything is a “me” problem.
Quick look at the week ahead
There are no scheduled PSE events this week, but it is the first full trading week of the year and we have the December inflation data in, so hopefully traders and investors will get a good look at the market this week. There are also no major scheduled events in the US markets, so it’s shaping up to be pretty quiet.MB BOTTOM-LINE: For any long-term investors out there, it’s a great time to review your thesis and your portfolio, and plan out any adjustments that you might need to make. My theme for FY23 was “Defense”, but I think my theme for FY24 is going to be “Preparation”; there’s a huge amount of uncertainty in the market right now, and I think that turning a profit this year will hinge on how quickly I’m able to convert event-based price drops into buying opportunities. These types of opportunistic trades were by far the most profitable for me in FY23, but they required me to be almost hyper-focused on a small number of stocks. I’m going to maintain that effort this year, or at least until it feels like the market has more of a direction.
DA pushing for bigger Philippine share of Japan’s food market
The Department of Agriculture is looking to get for Filipino farmers and fisherfolk a bigger share of food market of Japan, which imported a total USD87 billion of agricultural products in 2022, the fifth largest in the world that year.
14 nations warn Houthis vs Red Sea attacks
MANILA, Philippines — Fourteen nations led by the United States warned against further attacks in the Red Sea and called for the release of vessels and crews.