Retail investors are feeling less bearish and are planning to increase exposure to the stock market over the next six months, a survey conducted by online brokerage firm COL Financial show.
COL Financial president Conrado Bate said in a news briefing Thursday only 5 percent of retail investors that participated in the survey were bearish on the performance of the market over the next six months, compared to 14 percent in 2020.
The survey said 42 percent of the respondents had a neutral outlook on stock market for the next six months while 53 percent were expecting the market to have a bullish recovery.
About 75 percent of retail investors said they were planning to increase investments in the stock market over the next six months.
Nearly 50 percent said they would concentrate their investment action on blue chips while 31 percent said they would put more investments in growth stocks.
Meanwhile, Bate said the number of new online retail accounts enrolled with the COL Financial doubled in 2020 as more people began using technology to invest in the stock market.
He said that prior to the pandemic, COL Financial’s new accounts averaged 3,000 a month. This grew 10,000 a month last year.
Online investors are trading more actively, nearly five times more compared to other retail investors, Bate said.
This encouraged COL Financial to stop accepting new accounts and upgrade its online trading system to handle the increase in the number of trades.
Bate said the company was hopping to complete the upgrade within the next three to six months.
COL Financial research head April Lee-Tan said the benchmark index may hit 8,300 by the end of the year. She said while the outlook for the domestic economy was not very attractive, “the stock market can still go up on hopes that the availability of COVID-19 vaccines will help economic conditions normalize faster.”
“Moreover, valuations of stocks are still reasonable given low interest rates,” Tan said.
She said the stock market was also expected to benefit from the flow of foreign funds into energy markets like the Philippines.