Philippine bourse extends trading hours

The Philippine Stock Exchange said Thursday it would extend trading hours, the latest move by the bourse to boost turnover in the undersized market. Trading now lasts just two hours and 40 minutes and closes at midday. From October 1 trading will be extended to 1:00pm, the bourse said in a statement. And from January 1 the trading floor will be open between 9:30am and noon, then from 1:30-3:30pm, it said. Thursday's announcement was the second move this year by the exchange to generate higher trading volumes. In April it ordered the 30 large companies making up its composite index to raise the proportion of their freely traded shares from 10 percent to 12 percent by September. It said those that failed to comply with the higher free-float requirement would be excluded from the composite index. There are just 249 companies listed on the Philippine stock market, and total daily turnover averaged only five billion pesos ($116.3 million) this year, according to the exchange's website. Fewer than half a million Filipinos, or 0.5 percent of the population, owned and traded stocks last year, it said. But those few investors have done well recently. The composite index rose to an all-time high of 4,439.61 points on July 5, up 5.68 percent this year after a rise of 37.6 percent in 2010.