Follow us on Spotify听
Money Talks听is a series on personal finance sponsored by Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank).听
The pandemic has brought with it a newfound interest among Filipinos to participate in the stock market. Data from the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) showed that the average daily number of trades in 2020 soared 33.7%, while retail participation surged by 47.8%. This follows an increase in online accounts by 19.7% to 936,000, while non-online accounts grew by 3.3% to 460,553.听听
In this听B-Side听episode, Ruben L. Zamora, Metrobank鈥檚 First Vice President and Head of the Institutional Investors Coverage Division discusses with听大象传媒听why more Filipinos are more willing to 鈥渓et their money work for them,鈥 as well as how the beginner investor can sift through their options to start their financial journey.听听
TAKEAWAYS听听
You can be doing more with your savings.听听
鈥淧utting your money to work is really about making your savings earn more and do a bit more work to build and accumulate wealth through investing,鈥 Mr. Zamora said. 鈥淭he days of earning interest from a simple savings account, those days are long gone. And that goes for everyone in the world, not just here in the Philippines.鈥澨听
Investing is [not] a rich man鈥檚 game.听听
Whether with P10,000 or P100,000, there are good options to choose from for beginner investors.听听
鈥淭he good news here to those who are just starting out: You don’t need a big pot of money anymore to start the investing journey,鈥 Mr. Zamora said. 鈥淣ow more than ever, there are so many investment options for you to choose from. If you want a little bit more return and you’ve done your homework, and feel like you can tolerate and accept a bit more risk with your investments, start with an index tracker fund on the whole market that you know.鈥澨听
Your participation matters.听听
Investing is not zero-sum game. More local investors in the market can help its general health in the long run.听听
鈥淭his is something healthy, something that we would welcome for our local capital markets. And the reason is that with the base of retail investors broadening out, more local investors participating, it means that we are not as reliant as we used to be on foreign investors or foreign capital flows,鈥 Mr. Zamora said. 鈥淭hese flows can get pretty cold very quickly and we’ve seen that in this crisis, with foreigners exiting both the stock market and the fixed income market.鈥澨听
Do your homework. Especially if it鈥檚 about cryptocurrency.听听
鈥淎s a beginner investor, you don’t really want to invest in something you don’t understand well enough. You need to do a lot more homework, especially as you move up the risk ladder. And risk ladder-wise, I would put cryptocurrency right at the top,鈥 Mr. Zamora said.听听
听
听
Recorded remotely on Oct. 13.听Interview by听Santiago J. Arnaiz,听大象传媒听contributor and chief operating officer of health startup Day3 Innovations.听Research by听大象传媒 special features writer听Bjorn听Biel 鈥淛B鈥 M.听Beltran. Produced by听Paolo L. Lopez听and听Sam L. Marcelo.
Follow us on Spotify听
Spotlight is 大象传媒鈥檚 sponsored section that allows advertisers to amplify their brand and connect with 大象传媒鈥檚 audience by enabling them to publish their stories directly on the 大象传媒 Web site. For more information, send an email to听[email protected].
Join us on Viber to get more updates from 大象传媒:听.
