With the fall of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) over the last week, I have been frequently “e-mailed.”

Too often, I am ignored. I wish I was as important and busy as some people think I am. But I am not, and I usually answer e-mails within the same day. In fact, if your e-mail is waiting when I hit the computer at 6 a.m., you can have my words of wisdom with your coffee and pan de sal.

I bought my first shares of Philippine stocks on November 27, 1989. Please believe that it was coincidental bad timing on my part, and not that the coup was planned to just make sure I lost money. Not my fault!

However, let me make one thing perfectly clear. During the past many years, I have not made one single centavo from anything related to the PSE.

I do not trade the market. I do not sell a stock-market newsletter. I have never asked for free or discounted shares or cash from companies before or after I mention their stock in my public comments in the press or media.

I have this ethical problem with conflict of interest that does not seem to bother some others when they write about the stock market. I offer my free and unbiased advice because I happen to think that the stock market is one of the greatest tools for wealth creation ever invented.

When I read others saying that the market only benefits a few and always only the rich, I do not waste my time responding because I know that I am hearing from a person who has no clue about what a stock exchange is or why it exists. In truth, their understanding of the market is that it is just like lotto, only the ticket price is higher. They are fools.

One of the major reasons that the United States is the largest, strongest, wealthiest economy in world history is because of its stock and financial markets. The crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929 was not the market’s fault. It was the fault of the banks, which tried to use the stock market to further their own gains. The banks overextended themselves offering loans to buy stock. When share prices went down, as they always will in the natural cycle of things, the banks had too many bad loans and were broke.

It is not unlike what happened to many banks in the Philippines after 1997, with regard to the property developers. The US government had to save the banking system; the stock market came back on its own.

Is it simply coincidental that when you look at a country with a fundamentally sound and growing economy, you also see the same kind of sound and growing stock and capital markets? Of course not. Even China, with its “Wild West” stock market, is an example of that idea. It crosses all political systems also.

In Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew was perhaps rightly characterized as a “democratic dictator.” However, the Singapore stock exchange was and is a freewheeling capitalist market, notwithstanding the very strong and proper safeguards against fraud, that, too, are part of being sound and vibrant.

A stock market is also the most visible indicator of a nation’s wealth creation and strength. A vibrant stock market gives a glimpse into the potential for the future, which is not necessarily a predictor or prophet. Likewise, the market can send up red flags for that same potential future and should not be ignored.

Every wealthy nation treats its capital and financial markets with care and respect because it knows how vital it is to its economic well-being. And countries that view the markets as an afterthought or with little concern do not become wealthy. That has been a major problem in the Philippines, and it is about to change for the better.

You sometimes ask why I never share the tips I hear. Well, you can find those from many other places. But just so you do not think I live in a cave on Mt. Makiling, two IT companies will have a major joint venture by the end of the year. Two companies that you have not heard of for years are about to rise from the ashes. Another listed company is about to be taken over by another firm. There are two IPOs coming out later this year that will offer price increases we have not seen for a very long time.

Is all this information true? Of course, until proven otherwise. That is why it is sometimes financially dangerous to trade on the chismis.

After nearly eight years, I now intend to slowly begin a course of more active participation in the stock market and in the exchange. In the meantime, my cave is really on Mt. Maculot, so e-mail me with your thoughts and questions anytime. It gets lonely up here sometimes.

E-mail comments to mangun@email.com.

‘THE Philippines should emulate China by posting a 9.5-percent growth continuously for 25 years. Maybe then, it would become a First World country,” said an official from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at the presentation of the results of the 2005 Purchasing-Power Parity Preliminary Report.

There’s no better way to judge a man, the old saying goes, than by the caliber of his critics.

With the fall of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) over the last week, I have been frequently “e-mailed.”

‘No rain! No rain! No rain!” went the chant of the half-a-million crowd to stop the downpour from drenching them to the bones while they watched one music performer after another in the Woodstock music festival—billed as “Three Days of Music, Peace and Love”—at the height of summer in August 1969.

Is there a connection between the breach of the constitutional limit on the foreign ownership in the listed firm Philippine Racing Club Inc. (PRCI) with a forthcoming real-estate play in the 21-hectare prime lot in Sta. Ana Racetrack conservatively valued at P10 billion?

The Indian authorities may have finally become serious about mopping up unwarranted liquidity in the banking system.

Vanity of vanities

Ecclesiastes is the Greek term for the Hebrew Qoheleth, someone who serves the assembly of the people, a teacher or preacher. This sage of the fourth or third century before Christ had carefully examined the world he lived in and was convinced that when everything is said and done, life is a basket of vanities.