Stocks end flat in listless trade

The main stocks barometer ended almost unchanged Thursday as investors adopted a wait-and-see stance ahead of clearer leads from overseas.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed flat at 6,890.94, representing a decline of only 3.04 points or 0.04 percent from the previous day’s level. The broader All Shares index offset this with a 3.01-point rise to end at 3,975.45.

At its peak, the PSEi was up 0.9 percent but settled lower amid lack of incentive for investors to resume buying.

The most active stocks on Thursday were BDO Unibank (up 1.45 percent), GT Capital (up 2.77 percent), Metrobank (up 0.88 percent) and Universal Robina (down 1.77 percent).

Lightly traded stocks of I-Remit, TKC Steel and Pryce Corp. led the advancers’ league table, rising by 38.6 percent, 12 percent and 11.3 on Thursday. The top losers, on the other hand, were Ginebra San Miguel (down 12.3 percent), Petroenergy Resources (down 9 percent) and Cityland Development (down 7.77 percent).

Going forward, traders said the local market would try to gather momentum and take inspiration from signals from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas that domestic interest rates would likely stay unchanged for the rest of 2015. Daxim L. Lucas