Stocks end higher

Local stocks firmed up Friday as the slump in the last five days attracted selective buying.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) recovered 31.57 points or 0.47 percent to close at 6,730.96.

“The PSEi is up after a couple of down days. This means that the Fed (US Federal Reserve) and BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) policy news have been discounted and taken positively by the market,” local stockbrokerage Regina Capital said.

On Thursday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas decided to keep its overnight borrowing rates at record-low levels but increased the rate on special deposit accounts by 25 basis points.

Across the region, trading was mixed after another record close on Wall Street. Earlier this week, the US Federal Reserve indicated interest rates would be kept at record low levels for sometime.

Value turnover for the day swelled to P31.46 billion due to big block transactions. There were 109 advancers that overwhelmed 59 decliners.

All counters gained for the day, led by the mining/oil counter (+2.08 percent), still buoyed by the gains of Philex (+9.45 percent) following the formal lifting of the suspension order on its Padcal mine.

Megaworld was up by 3.2 percent after taking over 80.4 percent control of Global-Estate Resorts Inc. (Geri). The group of tycoon Andrew Tan completed the consolidation of property brands under Megaworld with its purchase of P10.43 billion worth of Geri shares from parent conglomerate AGI.

Banking issues Metrobank (+1.9 percent), BPI (+2.12 percent) and BDO (+0.34 percent) also buoyed the index. PLDT, Ayala Land, Ayala Corp., DMCI, ICTSI, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Jollibee also contributed to the PSEi’s advance.

Outside the PSEi, Da Vinci (+2.7 percent) gained in heavy volume still on backdoor-listing speculations.

On the other hand, Travellers—the day’s most actively traded stock—slipped 0.76 percent as Megaworld pared down its stake in the company in exchange for additional shares in Geri. Megaworld sold P10.43 billion worth of Travellers shares to parent AGI, matching the value of Geri shares it acquired. Doris C. Dumlao