Stocks up on upgrade news

The local stock barometer on Thursday perked up on the back of a sovereign rating upgrade from Moody’s—the last among the three major global credit rating agencies to give the Philippine government an investment grade rating.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index gained 25.39 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 6,387.65.

The local index rallied to as high as 6,418.15 during intraday trade, reversing an early weakness. But yesterday’s gains were tempered by some selling when the credit news broke out.

Since last week, there were rumors that Moody’s would upgrade the country’s credit standing very soon. Wednesday’s strong rally (+2.65 percent) appeared to have anticipated this positive rating action, some dealers said.

The market has been on the rise for the past three days.

“Now that all three major rating agencies have an investment grade rating on the country, we are even more excited about the economic prospects of the Philippines. The investment grade rating is a vote of confidence in the fundamental strengths of the economy. As investors train their eyes on us, we hope to continue to interest them behind the growth outlook

of our listed companies and the variety of investment products that we will soon be offering,” said PSE president Hans Sicat.

Value turnover at the local market was modest at P6.11 billion. While many large-cap stocks advanced to lift the PSEi, there were still more decliners (72) than advancers (62) during the day.

Holding firms (+1.1 percent) led the day’s upswing. On the other hand, the financial and industrial counters declined.

The day’s biggest gainers were AGI (+2.92 percent), Bloomberry (+2.48 percent) and SMIC (+2 percent). AC, EDC and URC were all up by over 1 percent, while Megaworld, ALI, SM Prime and Philex also contributed to the day’s gains.

On the other hand, the day’s laggers were Semirara (-2.96 percent), SMC (-2.7 percent) and LTG (-2.56 percent). FGEN, DMCI, Jollibee and MPI also slipped by over 1 percent.  Doris C. Dumlao