PSE Investing: Suggest an investment

**jhnkvn** · September 23rd, 2011 01:08 AM

Greetings fellow Tsikoteers!

I have an intention to join First Metro's StockXChallenge which is open to all college students with a 100,000php grand prize. Although the actual seminar hasn't been conducted yet as it's due this Saturday, I would assume this is one of those "winner is one who has the best financial gains" contests.

As for my background in stocks, I have zero knowledge in Philippine-listed companies except for a few blue-chips (Ayala, Jollibee, etc.). This is offset by my 7 year experience with US-listed stocks as I trade through Charles Schwab Hong Kong.

What I am in need of is access to information.

1. Recommended discussion forums/websites of Philippine stocks?
2. Any charts, information, etc (like those of MSN Moneycentral, Yahoo Finance, Google Finance styled) for Philippine companies? Aside from the PSE's official website, of course.

As the stock-picking would run from November 2011 til May 2012, I'm trying to absorb as much information as possible with regards to the Philippine stock market. Right now, just by looking at that 7 month span, I pretty much know I have to shift my strategy from long-term to short-term. Most likely a concentrated portfolio of small caps (Lynch philosophy)

The best sector performer of the PSE last year was mining stocks and upon a bit of minor probing (minor as in I haven't delved into their financial statements yet), noticed huge amount of speculation in mining stocks. Any comments about this?

Finally, last three questions/requests:

1. Is investing in the Philippine stock market different from US-listed exchanges? From what I observed, it seems that most people think that the "other party" won because of 'insider information'. Upon pondering the thought, it seems pretty logical as access to information is limited versus US-based where you got tens of thousands of websites available (Morningstar, Bloomberg, Google Finance, etc.)

2. Any major bad news for a Philippine-listed company? (hell, the first thing I scan is "worst performance this trading session" in US markets)

3. List down some of your recommended investments and a brief description of why.

Ex. Jollibee - lots of potential for expanding overseas on sites with high Filipino-density.

I hope some gurus there help enlighten me