PSEi breaks 7,700

THE LOCAL stock barometer closed past the 7,700 mark for the first time in history on Wednesday as investors took their cue from upbeat trading in Wall Street, in turn driven by a rebound in global oil prices.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index racked up 102.91 points or 1.35 percent to close at 7,716.06. A new intra-day peak was likewise hit at 7,738.12.

This marked the eighth record finish for the main index since the start of the year.

“The market was perked up by strong US performance,” said Manny Cruz, chief strategist at Asiasec Equities.

“While the PSEi trekked higher mostly in-step with Wall Street and other Asian markets, the Philippine story remains attractive to investors. The positive expectations continue to support the market’s uptrend,” said PSE president Hans Sicat.

Overnight, the closely watched Dow Jones Industrial Index surged by 305.36 points or 1.76 percent to 17,666.40.

At the local market, the day’s most actively traded stock was PLDT, which advanced by 3.56 percent. Asiasec’s Cruz said some foreign funds were positioning ahead of PLDT’s anticipated announcement of cash dividends by next month.

Another notable gainer is LTG, which went up by 9.71 percent, as the market is betting that market share will henceforth stabilize after rival cigarette-maker Mighty Corp. started raising retail prices in the last quarter of 2014, Cruz said.

Semirara was up by 4.6 percent on rosy expectations on its power businesses. Petron likewise gained by 4.38 percent.

BDO, Ayala Corp. and DMCI all gained by over 2 percent while ALI, Metrobank, EDC and Jollibee rose by over 1 percent.

URC, Megaworld, GTCAP, SM Prime, MPI and SMIC also contributed to the day’s gains.

All counters were up but the services (+1.97 percent) and mining/oil (+1.66 percent) were the biggest beneficiaries.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P7.19 billion. There were 109 advancers that beat 63 decliners while 48 stocks were unchanged.

“While we continue to be positive over the long-term, the market may be susceptible to profit-taking as we tread higher into the earnings season and near Chinese New Year celebrations in the region, which may trigger a period of low-volume trading due to extended holidays,” local stock brokerage DA Market Securities said.

“We also note possible rife rotation of fund flows among stocks. We also note possible rife rotation rotational movement among stocks,” it added.

Citing relative strength index, DA Market said the market was approaching overbought territory even as the moving averages continued to show a bullish crossover.