PSEi rides on upbeat regional marts

THE LOCAL stock barometer gained for the sixth session in a row on Thursday, tracking upbeat regional markets following Singapore’s surprise monetary stimuli.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index added 16.28 points or 0.22 percent to close at 7,357.28.

Across the region, stock markets trekked higher as Singapore’s central bank unexpectedly relaxed monetary settings.

At the local market, the gains were led by the financial, industrial, holding firm, services, mining/oil and property counters. Only the financial counter ended in the red.

There were 126 advancers that beat 77 decliners while 39 stocks were unchanged. Value turnover for the day amounted to P8.11 billion.

AP led the PSEi higher with its 2.07 percent gain while Megaworld also advanced by 1.23 percent. Others contributed most modest gains: ALI, AC, SMIC, MPI, Metrobank, Meralco, GTCAP, AEV and Globe.

Outside of the PSEi basket, one notable gainer was retailer Puregold, which rallied by 4.06 percent. On Thursday, Puregold reported that its net profit last year had expanded by 10.6 percent to P5 billion as its sales expanded while the network kept an average margin of 5.1 percent, the highest among its peers.

On the other hand, URC, PLDT, SM Prime, BDO and Jollibee all slipped.

The day’s most actively traded stock, Security Bank, fell by 1.1 percent due to profit-taking.