Online accounts comprised 27 percent of some 641,000 brokerage accounts in 2014, PSE data show
SIX YEARS ago, Ana Cristina Villar knew nothing about investing in the stock market.
It was 2010, the United States financial crisis and its global fallout were fresh on everyone’s minds, and interest rates were at record lows.
The times were volatile but that was also when Villar decided to open an account with online stock broker COL Financial Group Inc.
She started small, parking an initial P5,000 in three blue-chip companies with little support other than seminars given by COL and encouragement from family and a local ministry.
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Initial losses
“I didn’t know how to invest,” Villar recounted in an interview with the Inquirer. “But I also didn’t like people telling me I can’t buy this stock or that.”