Profit-taking seen

After rising for nine weeks in a row to breach uncharted territory, the local stock market is seen increasingly susceptible to some profit-taking.

Last week, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gained 51.94 points or 0.7 percent to close on Friday at 7,825.39.

Luis Gerardo Limlingan, managing director at local stockbrokerage Regina Capital Development Corp., said the PSEi was expected to trend sideways to lower within the next two weeks.

He said this was based on how “overbought” technical signals have become since breaking 7,700.

“The 20-day MA (moving average) will be the level to watch out for this week as a breach will trigger to take profits on positions,” Limlingan said. “On a worst-case scenario, we could see pullbacks to 32-day MA (7,584) within the same timeframe assuming current volatility levels are constant.”

AB Capital Securities said the market was once again trading at a high price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 22.16x and breaking the psychological resistance level at the 7,800 level. Doris C. Dumlao