This time of year, is when we both remember and fear the dead. Cemeteries are full and filled with the energy of those visiting their dear departed. We fill our conversations with horror stories that include monsters, vampires, and, of course, ghosts. It is when we relish telling stories about the past, about the good memories as well as the ghoulish.

Such was the experience last week at the Philippine stock market. While investors were not really scared out of their socks, still the persistent weakness of the market evoked a different kind of creeping fear. And if expectations were taken linearly, they could have caused a discomfort as described in the violent beating in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Tell-Tale Heart.

With the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEI) back below the 6,000 level, will we find the market’s version of HP Lovecraft’s creature, Cthulhu, which will bring us further into the depths? Probably not. While we have big problems, this is also the perfect time to remember the value the market contains, and at the same time acknowledge the structural ghosts that keep investors away at the moment.

Despite slower growth seen in both the economy and listed companies, profit levels are high and growth is still positive. More importantly, healthy profits are being returned to shareholders with steady dividends. Of particular interest are the utilities and real estate investment trusts (REITs) that have healthy dividend yields. While interest rate hikes and exchange rate volatility can act like vampires or dementors that can suck the life or returns out of a market, these dividend-robust companies are the Van Helsings or a Patronus Charm defense.

However, even with such a value-creating strategy as a defense, there is still this gnawing, if not maddening, problem of bringing life back into an inanimate market that Mary Shelley narrates in Frankenstein. We know that the doubts surrounding economic and earnings growth are mounting given structural issues and the changing global environment.

The ASEAN summit this week, which was attended by US President Donald Trump, revealed that while our neighbors — Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia — were granted zero tariffs by the US, we were granted none. These ASEAN neighbors reportedly opened up their economies to the US, while we chose to maintain tariff protection for selected industries.

While the rationale is reasonable, it does not seem very strategic, at least at this stage. We cannot expect a change in our external situation if we do not implement changes internally, especially if our partners and competitors are making strategic changes to improve their situation.

Hopefully, this will be addressed in future events or negotiations, but sustainable growth comes from strategizing globally, thinking regionally and acting locally.

Meanwhile, the revelations of the October investigations in the Senate have made investors aware of ghost projects and a horde of corrupt officials that drain the hard-earned contributions of living taxpayers who struggle to pay the yawning fiscal deficit. Purging or containing this contagion is expected to keep government spending down over the next few quarters.

We cannot be too pessimistic about the economy or the market for too long. This season of the undead is only a weekend and it will pass. To the corrupt and prophets of doom that see our political issues as an omen of market decline, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven has the best response: “Nevermore!”

However, we should never ask the Raven if the market will rise in 2026, unless we get the same response. If anything, what veterans of the market have learned is that sometimes you find the best stock picks and returns even during the strangest of times in the Twilight Zone.