Share trading statistics: Philippines 2020

Quick overview

• In March 2020 the PSE Index fell around 40% from where it was at the start of the year
• Major share trading and brokerage platforms have seen an average website traffic uptick of 47% from March to April of this year
• Search data suggests more people are currently looking up how to buy rather than sell stocks

Coronavirus share trading trends in the Philippines

Finder analysis of SEMrush and Google Trends data suggests Filipinos have been paying attention to the recent price declines. Analysis of website traffic from SEMrush reveals many share trading platforms and brokerages are seeing spikes in website traffic from March to April of this year. Of the 8 brands included in the analysis, 6 saw their traffic increase between 18% and 209%. On average there was a 47% uptick in Filipinos visiting these share trading and brokerage platforms.

2Trade Asia experienced the biggest traffic increase from March to April with a month-on-month increase of a massive 209%. BPI Trade also saw a big spike with a 96% increase followed by Philstocks (54%) and COL Financial (42%). First Metro Securities and Angel Investment Network saw more modest increases at 30% and 18%, respectively.

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• Table of results

Are Filipinos buying or selling shares?

SEMrush data suggests more people were interested in share trading in April than in March but it doesn’t tell us if they’re more interested in selling or buying – for that we’ll need to take a look at Google Trends data.

On average online search interest for buying shares began to increase in March, followed by a significant spike in April. Conversely, interest in selling shares was highest in the last week of March, before falling in early April.

How does the Philippines compare to the rest of the world?

The Google Trends data for the Philippines is similar to what we saw in other countries with search interest in buying shares increasing in March. However, globally, search interest for buying shares peaked in March, while the Philippines didn’t peak until April.

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Out of the 33 countries where there was enough data for a comparison of the term “buy shares”, the Philippines ranked 19th for a period of 30 days across April and March. Overall there has been more search interest for “buy shares” in the Philippines than in countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, but less than countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Pakistan.

Overall Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have seen the most interest in the term “buy shares” over the last 30 days and last 12 months. Comparing the rankings from 5 years ago to the last 30 days reveals New Zealand has had the biggest search interest ranking increase (3), followed by Vietnam (2), the United States (2) and Canada (2). Perhaps it’s retail investors in these countries that are most optimistic about investing opportunities as a result of coronavirus market movements.

• Methodology

  Data sources: Trading Economics, SEMrush and Google Trends.