PH stocks rally still gaining

The local stocks index climbed to a new record high on Wednesday, perked up by news of a prospective consolidation of Henry Sy’s real estate businesses.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index added 27.85 points, or 0.42 percent, to a new record closing of 6,648.57. A new all-time high of 6,690 was also hit in intraday trade.

“The market is currently overbought and we’ll be running into this problem for most of the year, resulting in P/E (price to earnings ratio) expansion,” said Juanis Barredo, chief technical analyst at COL Financial. However, he said there was still upward momentum as the PSEi remained above short-term support levels of 6,478 and 6,385.

On Wednesday, SM-related stocks traded briskly on news that the group was studying a proposal from investment bankers to merge property businesses to create the biggest property player in the country. By folding residential property arm SMDC and SM Land into property flagship SM Prime, the group is seen creating a full-range property firm that can withstand economic cycles.

Among SM stocks, SMDC posted the sharpest gain (+3.87 percent) while SMIC (+0.7 percent) and SM Prime (+1.14 percent) gained at a more modest pace.

AGI (+3.88 percent) also aided the PSEi’s rise.  Property arm Megaworld (+0.26 percent), announced Wednesday the doubling of an investment plan for a township project in Mactan, Cebu, to P20 billion over a seven-year period.

Other stocks that contributed to the day’s upswing were Jollibee (+1.22 percent), PLDT (+1.12 percent), AEV (+0.95 percent), EDC (+0.82 percent) and ALI (+0.63 percent).—Doris C. Dumlao