Week in review: 21–25 September 2026
I’m taking a beating in Philippine stocks. There really isn’t a more comfortable way to describe it.
DD is up 68.56% against my cost basis. LTG is up 66.90%. Those are substantial unrealised gains, yet my stock portfolio as a whole is still down 17.18%. Having a few winners feels rather different when the total remains this far in the red.
Friday’s market rebound was welcome. It just hasn’t made the account comfortable to look at.
This is my personal investment journal. I hold the shares discussed below, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell them.
A better Friday, with plenty of ground still to recover
The PSEi closed on 25 September at 5,825.97, gaining 95.95 points, or 1.67%, on the day. All six main sector indices rose. Services gained 3.22% and Financials 1.51%, while Property managed a much smaller 0.13% increase. Across the market, 106 shares advanced and 70 declined. Source: Philippine Stock Exchange
That was an encouraging session. My account, however, measures something different: where my holdings stand against what I paid for them.
The stock portion shows an unrealised loss of 17.18%. Including the mutual fund and cash balances, the account’s displayed loss against cost is 17.01%.
Neither figure is my return for this week. They also exclude dividends and realised gains or losses from previous sales. I have not calculated a weekly portfolio return adjusted for deposits, withdrawals and trading.
Jollibee is the position I cannot ignore
JFC accounts for about 21.6% of the displayed value of my shareholdings. Its unrealised loss is 33.52%.
That combination matters. A large loss in a small position is unpleasant; a large loss in the biggest holding has much more influence over the account.
BDO represents roughly 11.2% of my stock portfolio and ALI about 7.7%. Together with JFC, those three positions account for around 40.5%. I hold 24 stocks, but the money is far from evenly spread between them.
Some of the other losses are deeper in percentage terms. ALI is down 37.05% against cost, SM 40.34% and JGS 42.03%. BDO is down 8.16%.
It would be easy to focus only on the worst percentage. The more useful question for my portfolio is how much I have exposed to each company, and whether the business still justifies that exposure.
For JFC, I want to keep checking whether sales growth translates into earnings, and what happens to margins and costs. Familiarity with a company does not remove the need to examine its results.
The winners help, but they do not cancel out the losses
DD and LTG remain the most striking winners against my purchase costs. Their current weights are about 6.2% and 6.8% of the stock portfolio respectively.
PSE is also ahead by 27.89%, AP by 14.28%, MYNLD by 12.89%, GLO by 5.34% and AGI by 2.69%.
Again, these are unrealised gains against cost, not this week’s price changes.
This is probably the most frustrating part of the account. There are positions that have done well, including two with gains of more than 60%, but they are not large enough to offset the losses elsewhere. Looking at the winners individually gives a much brighter impression than looking at the portfolio as a whole.
The REIT holdings also need a little care when reading the figures. AREIT shows an unrealised loss of 13.79% and RCR 11.53%, but those figures do not include distributions received. They should not be presented as total returns.
Ayala’s announcement gives me something concrete to follow
There was a significant development at one of my holdings this week. On 21 September, Ayala announced an agreement to expand Mitsubishi Corporation’s investment.
Ayala’s exchange disclosure puts the transaction at approximately PHP44.5 billion, with an agreed subscription and acquisition price of PHP650 per common share. It combines primary and secondary shares, including a voluntary tender offer. On completion, Mitsubishi’s economic ownership is expected to rise from 4.7% to 15%, with a voting stake of 20%. Source: Ayala’s PSE disclosure
Mitsubishi’s own announcement describes deeper collaboration in financial services, telecommunications and retail, with plans to broaden cooperation in real estate and energy. Completion remains subject to the necessary regulatory approvals and applicable tender offer requirements. Source: Mitsubishi Corporation
My AC position still shows an unrealised loss of 24.22%.
The agreement gives me a business development to follow beyond the daily share price. But the PHP650 transaction price is not a guaranteed future market price. Nor can I assume that all my shares could be sold at that price without checking the tender offer’s terms and limits.
I want to see how the agreement progresses and what the expanded partnership produces. The announcement alone does not settle either question.
What I need to think about next
I continue to hold Philippine shares while working towards the Special Investor’s Resident Visa, or SIRV. That longer-term goal does not make the losses any less real on the screen.
I would like my holdings to recover. But wanting to get back to my purchase price is not, by itself, a reason to keep the same allocation indefinitely.
The question worth asking is whether I would choose these companies in these proportions if I were putting the portfolio together today. That is something to review, rather than a trade I have decided to make.
For now, I am watching whether Friday’s market recovery lasts, following Ayala’s transaction, and paying particular attention to the results of my largest holdings.
DD and LTG have done well for me against cost. JFC, ALI and several others have hurt. Both things are true, and the account still says minus 17.18%.
That is where this week’s record stands.
About the figures
Portfolio figures come from the latest account display supplied for this review and are indicative. The pasted holdings did not include an explicit valuation date, so I have not independently established that every holding was valued at the 25 September close. The PSEi figure was checked against the exchange’s dated closing display. Holding weights use the displayed value of the stock portion only. Unrealised returns are measured against cost and exclude dividends, realised results and conversion into another currency.