The Diliman Diary forays into the PSE's Stock Market Trading Game as part of its financial education advocacy

By Chanda Shahani

Announcement: As part of the Diliman Diary's advocacy in promoting financial literacy for beginners, we are announcing today the launch of a new blog entitled "Asian Equities" and we will also be launching our own index named "Diliman Diary Index (Philippines)" whose performance is intended to be matched with the Philippine Stock Exchange Index

By September 30, 2011 we will open a new virtual trading account with PhP 1 million in virtual money under the Philippine Stock Exchange's Stock Trading Game. Our portfolio  will be named Diliman Diary Index (Philippines). We hope to track our performance versus the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi). We hope to do this as part of our advocacy in promoting financial literacy in Asian stock markets. Since I am based in the Philippines, I will first start with Philippine stocks, but plan to include more Asian countries as time goes by (these will be named as an index after each additional country). Changes to the portfolio will be done utilizing the principles of fundamental investing and due to time constraints, will only be done only on a monthly basis. We plan to update our analysis of stocks on a weekly basis.

We will be making more announcements on our planned series free basic financial  seminars to be held in the Diliman area. Abangan!

To enlarge the graphic, just click on it

Readers will notice that the portfolio is currently trading at a loss; but this is not a problem from a fundamental trader's perspective with months and years as the relevant time horizon. This short list of stocks was arrived at by employing only one financial screen (we computed for positive alpha stocks with betas higher than one) and is admittedly extremely arbitrary since we need to employ more additional screens that will add more rigor to the stock selection process. We will do this as a process of discovery with our readers, and will appreciate any feedback. Nevertheless, our vision is to show to the average reader that fundamental investing is neither speculation nor gambling, and that one's personal wealth can be compounded on a continuous basis by setting aside a fixed amount every month (no matter how small) which can be put into stocks which will let your wealth appreciate without your having to work extremely hard for this.

There is one caveat, however. Financial literacy assumes that its practitioners have the discipline to do some basic research on stocks and other financial instruments on their own. Our blog, Asian Equities is intended to be your virtual companion as you embark on your own journey to financial independence; and we will strive to impart the basic tools. Our blog will also serve as a constantly evolving reference as we continue to update our research findings about the Asian stock market. We theefore encourage you to check out our new blog, Asian Equities.

(Chanda Shahani is an A.B. Comparative Literature graduate from U.P. Diliman. He has a Master in Entrepreneurship (M.E.) degree from the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and is a former business reporter from the Philippine STAR).

PSEi hits 4,005.46 mark, Peso reaches 44.293 to the US$

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) hit the 4,014 points before closing 0.8 percent or 31.98 points higher at 4,005.46 Thursday.

The broader all-share index also went up by 0.8% at 2,497.14.

A total of 4.1 billion shares worth P6.625 billion changed hands.

“Year to date, the stock market has gained a total of 31.21 percent or 952.78 points. For the same period the stock market has also generated wealth worth P1.5 trillion in terms of domestic market capitalization. We continue to be invigorated by these bullish trends and look forward to new highs this year,” PSE president Val Antonio B. Suarez said.

The PSE continues to undertake several initiatives to broaden the market’s breadth and depth, including the introduction of new investment products and the successful roll-out of a New Trading System last July, which was developed by NYSE Technologies.

It is the country's only stock exchange with 250 listed firms and 132 active trading participants.

Meantime, the US$ and PhP exchange rate for September 16, 2010 was as follows:

US$ 1.00 = PhP 44.293

(With reports from PNA and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas)