Philippine Stock Exchange to extend trading hours starting October

By: Doris C. Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer  
12:00 pm | Thursday, July 14th, 2011

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Stock Exchange has finalized plans to extend trading hours beginning October 2011, in a bid to attract more investor interest and prepare for cross-border trading with Southeast Asian neighbors.

The PSE disclosed on Thursday that its board had approved extending the trading hours from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. from the current trading hours from 9:30 am to 12:10 pm.

By January 1, 2012, the trading hours will be extended further into the afternoon but with a lunch break in between. The morning session will be 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon while the afternoon session will be 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

With the local stocks index hitting record highs, PSE chair Jose Pardo said in a recent interview that it’s timely to implement longer trading hours for the local bourse to be able to “identify with the rest of the world.”

“The countdown with Asean is fast approaching. We’re looking at March next year to begin that process of integration,” Pardo said.

The PSE had approved a resolution to revive longer trading hours in 2008 but this was shelved due to the unfavorable economic conditions at that time. At that time, global commodity prices were skyrocketing, thereby hurting the Philippines, a net importer of crude oil and rice. This was followed by the Wall Street-epicentered financial crisis that shook up the rest of the world in 2009.

The policy to extend trading hours was revived as the new PSE board believed this would help boost liquidity in the local market.