Phisix 7,250: Team Viagra April Fools Edition; Japan’s Nikkei Plunges 3.55%

An April Fool’s day stock market pump! Only in the Philippines!

While April Fools may not be widely celebrated here, with regards to Philippine stocks, it’s been just another day of the FOOLs. 

Team Viagra has been making a fool out of everyone. They want to impress upon the public that they can manipulate stocks without consequences. They also seem to think that by serially blowing bubbles, their actions can lead to G-R-O-W-T-H or delusional prosperity. 

Yet it’s a big day today for Team Viagra. 

That’s because they chopped off more than two thirds or 69% of the headline index losses through their brazen use of “marking the close” pumps. 

Thanks to them, the Phisix was down by only 1.56% this week. 

Today’s action was practically the same modus as yesterday: a selloff in one major sector would have to be neutralized by a closing minute pump on key heavyweights. 

While the financial sector was the object of selling pressure yesterday, today the service sector led by PLDT -3.03% and GLO -5.77% weighed on index 

Seen from the sectoral performance, Team Viagra pumped key issues from four indices 

Compared to yesterday, today’s orchestrated pump was significant. 

Four issues posted gains of .9% and above from "marking the close" pump! 

And the furious pumps amazingly came from unchanged (yellow) or from losses (red) that suddenly morphed into material gains! 

All these concentrated pumping has pushed market cap weightings lopsidedly towards the top 15 which now accounts for 80% of the index share. The top 5 commands a striking 38.31% share! Where the top 5 goes, the index goes. Much more the top 15.

And the concentration of pumping activities can be seen through the skewing of excessively high PERs on the top 5-10 issues. 

You see all actions have consequences. The more the artificial pumps, the pricier these issues get. And with valuations reaching disproportionate levels with that of reality, the bigger the risks of panics. 

With the top half of the benchmark controlling 80% share, the other half function as benchwarmers. 

Nonetheless even these issues remain pricey too. 

As an aside, actions at Japan’s stock market today seem interesting. 

The Nikkei plummeted 3.55% as Japan's manufacturing activities contracted most in 3 years! The Nikkei 225 has been rolling over since a week ago. Today’s plunge only highlights on the possible inflection point from the recent rally.  Question is: has the Nikkei been the proverbial canary in the coal mine? Or has Risk OFF returned? 

If so, can Philippine index manipulators stop the tide? Or like in January, will they be watching helplessly on the sidelines and pray for help from global central banks for rescue? 

Note: figures/images from colfinancial.com, Bloomberg, PSE and technistock.net