PSEi seen staying above 6,000

Local stocks are seen attempting to stabilize above the 6,000 psychological support level this week while the market awaits the stream of fourth-quarter earnings reports.

Last week, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) lost 30.05 points or 0.5 percent to close on Friday at 6,011.14, mostly tracking Wall Street movements.

Before the one-day advance last Friday, the main index went on a a short-term decline that placed the PSEi’s immediate support at 5,880, said AB Capital Securities analyst Abbygayle Estrella.

On a technical perspective, the trend of the PSEi’s relative strength index (RSI) hinted that the PSEi would likely stay within the 5,700-6,200 range in the near term but with the bias on the upper band, Estrella said.

The local market has seen an ongoing uptrend of higher lows since the two-month low of 5,710 and if the PSEi would be able to maintain this gradual climb, Estrella said it could once again knock on the 6,200 level.

For this week, AB Capital Securities said it expected the main index to move sideways with the tendency to approach the strong near-term resistance at 6,200. “This provides an opportunity for investors to cash in their gains from the recent bargain-hunt,” Estrella said.

She said among the economic data up for release this week are China export and import figures and US retail sales and weekly jobless claims. Doris C. Dumlao