PH stocks recoup losses of previous days

MANILA, Philippines–The Philippine Stock Exchange index on Thursday firmed up above 7,200 ahead of an upcoming rebalancing of the closely tracked MSCI index.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index gained 27.82 points, or 0.39 percent, to close at 7,236.63, stabilizing after a two-day decline triggered by a selldown on index heavyweight PLDT.

The PSEi was led higher by the property counter, which rose by 1.8 percent. The financial, industrial, holding firm and mining/oil counters likewise rose.

Only the services counter was in the red (-0.73 percent) still weighed down by PLDT (-2.34 percent), which slumped for a third session since announcing slower-than-expected third quarter results and cutting its full-year profit guidance.

Local stock brokerage DA Market Securities said PLDT’s trading performance may continue to weigh on the market in the near term as investors factor in slower earnings and the highly competitive industry outlook.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P9.75 billion. Despite the rebound of the main index, market breadth was negative as there were 90 decliners narrowly edging out 88 advancers, while 46 stocks were unchanged.

Investors picked up shares of BDO, Megaworld, ALI and GTCAP, which all rose by over 2 percent. Metrobank and EDC also gained by over 1 percent.

AGI, SMIC, SM Prime and Bloomberry also contributed to the PSEi’s rise.

In the last few weeks, investors have been trying to take positions on the companies that may be included, or gain risk weights, in the MSCI rebalancing.

Outside of PSEi stocks, a lot of gaming issues attracted investors. LRW was up by 23.91 percent while PLC gained by 5.24 percent.

Aside from PLDT, other index decliners were ICTSI, AC, BPI and URC.–Doris C. Dumlao