ANVIL'S GOT GAME (ON WEALTH MANAGEMENT)

It was another full house during Association of Young Filipino-Chinese Entrepreneurs (Anvil Business Club)'s 8th monthly Business Exchange Forum, as more than 120 members and guests braved Typhoon Henry's torrential southwest monsoon rains and flocked to the stylish Palm Grove area of the Rockwell Club to hear the legendary investment management guru Wilson L. Sy's incisive insights on how to make it big in the wealth securities business. Joining him were three of PhilEquity Team's most engaging stock experts, Miguel Agarao, Jerome Gonzales and Nicholas Dominador Fernandez, who each took turns enlightening the members with their specific area of expertise.

The first presenter, Miguel Agarao, talked about "Macro Economic Outlook and Strategy," where he emphasized the importance of relevant macro-economic data in forecasting economic conditions to help them advise clients on wealth and investment management strategies.

The second presenter, Nicholas Dominador "N.D." Fernandez, followed it up with a briefer on "Index Forecasting," where he indicated the complexities of tracking the performance of the most representative companies listed on the Stock Exchange. Using a free-float, capitalization-weighted index, performance is measured on actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The third presenter, Jerome Gonzales, engaged the audience to the nuances of "Technical Analysis of Stocks," where a security analysis methodology is used for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. Using this widely-accepted method, fundamental analysts examine earnings, dividends, new products, research and the like to identify price patterns and market trends in financial markets and attempt to exploit those patterns.

Finally, the "main man" himself, Mr. Wilson Sy, opted to answer inquiries from the audience. From his wealth of experience and outstanding track record, he was able to enlighten everyone on the basic nuances of stock market dynamics. He said, "the problem with 99% of stock players is that they don't treat their stocks the way they treat their friends." He explained further: "If you have friends who turned out to be bad, wouldn't you dump them? If you have friends who are good, wouldn't you keep them? Similarly, dump non-performing stocks and keep the good ones. Most people tend to sell good performing stocks the moment the value goes up and they earn; while they still keep the poor performing stocks even when the value is already below their purchase price."

The jam-packed forum was also made notable with the utilization of Pigeonhole Live for the first time. The software is an advanced real-time, conference Question-and-Answer tool that enabled conference attendees to post and vote for questions using their mobile devices. Through this system, courtesy of member Jerry Tieng, the speakers were able to identify questions to address on-the-spot, taking into account the popularity of questions.

Mr. Wilson Sy is the Chairman and President of Wealth Holdings Corporation, Vice-Chairman and Director of Asian Alliance Holdings Corporation and Chairman of Manila Stock Exchange Foundation, Inc., among many other listed companies. He previously served as Chairman of the Philippines Stock Exchange and the Manila Stock Exchange. A man with a knack for numbers, he graduated with a Management Engineering degree from the Ateneo de Manila University.