Stock market trades up 26% to P138 billion in April amid crisis

MANILA, Philippines - Total trades of the Philippines Stock Exchange (PSE) went up 26 percent last April compared to the previous month despite the volatility in capital markets worldwide, a leading stock brokerage firm said.

In a report, ATR KimEng Securities Inc. said aggregate value turnover for April increased to P138.09 billion, from P109.96 billion in March. Total market value traded from January to April this year amounted to P378.13 billion.

In the PSE’s Trading Participants Ranking Report released recently, ATRKE Securities was the top broker for April in terms of market value turnover. Its P41.11-billion value turnover accounted for 29.77 percent of the PSE’s total value turnover.

Ranked second for the month was foreign broker Deutsche Regis Partners, with a share of 8.78 percent, followed by Philippine Equity Partners Inc.’s 7.51 percent.

For the four-month period from January to April this year, ATRKE Securities also ranked first overall among trading participants at the PSE, with a 16.38 percent share of the market’s total value turnover.

ATRKE Securities is the securities brokerage arm of ATR KimEng Financial Corp., a publicly-listed diversified financial services company with businesses in the capital markets, insurance, and real estate. Its wholly-owned subsidiary, ATR KimEng Capital Partners Inc., is the country’s largest independent investment house.

The group is principally involved in corporate finance and advisory services (equity IPOs and secondary offers, bond underwriting, mergers and acquisitions, debt restructuring); stockbrokering and equity research; life and general insurance underwriting and distribution; asset management (mutual funds and trust fund management); foreign exchange and fixed income broking; and real estate investments.

Through its shareholder Kim Eng Holdings Ltd., a publicly-listed company in Singapore, the group enjoys equity access throughout Southeast Asia, Europe and North America.