Share prices slightly up

The traditional yearend window-dressing enabled the local stock index to inch higher for a third straight session.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange added 23.44 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 5,878.32, tracking other regional markets.

The day’s rise was led by the mining/oil and property counters.

But value turnover was scant at P3.46 billion as many trading participants are still on holiday.

There were 76 advancers against 68 decliners, while 45 stocks were unchanged.

Dealers said the bias was on the upside for the last trading days of 2013.

The day’s biggest gainer was SMC (+2.46 percent). Yesterday, the PSE announced that its board had approved the listing by way of introduction of SMC’s controlling stockholder Top Frontier at a price of P178 a share.

Likewise contributing to the day’s gains were URC, ALI, JGS, Megaworld, SM Prime, Jollibee, Bloomberry, FGEN and BPI, which all rose by over 1 percent each.  Doris C. Dumlao