Presidential Elections May Spell Fat Philippine Stock Returns
- Local equities have mostly rewarded investors after elections
- Benchmark Philippine Stock Index down 3.6% so far this year
Campaign posters in a residential area in Quezon City, the Philippines, earlier in April.
Photographer: Veejay Villafranca/BloombergThe eve of Philippine presidential elections could be a good window to plow money into the nation’s equities. In the six months following a presidential election, the Philippine Stock Exchange Index has given world-beating returns in four of the last five times there were polls to elect a new leader.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index was up 3.4% six months after Rodrigo Duterte won in 2016, almost double the MSCI World’s rise in the same period. The gauge was up 38% at the six-month point after the 2010 vote and 17% after the 2004 election, about twice the global gauge’s gain in the same periods. A drop after the 1998 vote -- in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis and the election of B-movie actor Joseph Estrada as president-- was the only time the Philippine index lagged its MSCI peer comprising both developed and emerging markets.