Stock market accounts markedly higher in 2024

DIGITAL initiatives and increased investor know-how led to stock market accounts reaching 2.86 million last year, the Philippine Stock Exchange said.

This doubled from 1.91 million in 2023 and was primarily fueled by online accounts surging by 62.0 percent to 2.47 million from 1.53 million.

“This 50-percent jump in the number of accounts is the highest we have recorded since we started tracking the investor count and profile in 2008,” PSE President and CEO Ramon S. Monzon said in a statement.

“More than the numbers, what is important is that retail investors are equipped with investment know-how to avoid investing pitfalls,” he also said.

Monzon attributed the surge to digital connections to the bourse’s trading platform and said the PSE remained committed to its goal of promoting financial inclusion.

In addition to the PSE Academy and market education initiatives, he said the PSE also had digital channels aimed at facilitating retail investments.

“We recently launched the latest version of the PSE EASy mobile app that allows local small investors to subscribe to and pay for initial public offerings and follow-on offerings directly on the app,” he noted.

The bourse said that retail investors comprised 98.9 percent of total account owners while institutional investors made up the remaining 1.1 percent. Nearly all, or 99.0 percent, of the accounts were owned by local investors.

The average value of online trades was said to have gone up by 7.9 percent to P50,746.82 while that for non-online transactions rose 4.5 percent to P99,823.86.

There were slightly more female investors than male investors in terms of online (50.7 percent compared to 49.3 percent ) and total accounts (50.8 percent versus 49.2 percent)

Investors aged 30 to 44 cornered 48.8 percent of total and 51.6 percent of online accounts, up from 45.6 percent and 49.0 percent, respectively, in 2023.

Eighteen to 29-year olds were the second biggest group with 26.5 percent of total accounts and 28.4 percent of online accounts, also rising from 19.5 percent and 21.5 percent.

Those aged 45 to 59 saw their share dip to 17.4 percent from 20.2 percent for total accounts and 16.3 percent from 18.6 percent for online accounts.

A decline was also seen for investors aged 60 and above to 7.3 percent from 14.8 percent in terms of total accounts and 3.7 percent from 10.9 percent for online accounts.

Investors making less than P500,000 per year remained the biggest holder of retail accounts, with their share of total accounts rising to 82.4 percent from 70.9 percent and that for online accounts also higher at 86.2 percent from 76.7 percent

Investors earning above P1 million, meanwhile, saw their total accounts share drop to 10.9 percent from 14.7 percent and that for online slide to 9.1 percent from 11.4 percent.

The shares of those earning between P500,000 and P1 million fell to 6.7 percent from 14.4 percent for total accounts and 4.7 percent from 11.9 percent for online accounts.

Investors based locally and overseas made up 99.4 percent and 0.6 percent of total accounts and 99.5 percent and 0.5 percent for online accounts, respectively.

The share of Metro Manila-based investors slipped to 49.3 percent from 68.2 percent for total accounts and to 47.3 percent from 68.0 percent for online accounts.

The number of accounts in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao all recorded an increase. For Luzon it was 28.4 percent from 18.6 percent for total accounts and 29.6 percent from 18.7 percent for online accounts.

For the Visayas, total accounts grew to 10.8 percent from 6.6 percent while online accounts jumped to 11.0 percent from 6.5 percent, while Mindanao-based investors doubled their total and online accounts to 10.9 percent from 5.5 percent and 11.5 percent from 5.8 percent.

In terms of foreign nationality, Japanese, Chinese, and American citizens had the most number of accounts with their shares at 29.9 percent, 19.8 percent and 13.0 percent.

Monzon said the challenge facing the PSE was getting retail investors to participate more actively as they only contribute 16 percent to total value turnover.

“We are optimistic that the upcoming reduction in stock transaction tax to 0.1 percent from 0.6 percent, along with the various investor education programs and upcoming pipeline of products of the exchange, will encourage greater investor activity for the remainder of 2025,” he added.