PSEi nears 7,000
THE LOCAL stock barometer rallied closer to the 7,000 mark on Thursday as higher oil prices and hopes for more China stimulus boosted investors’ risk appetite across the region.
Rising for the third straight session, the Philippine Stock Exchange index racked up 80.99 points or 1.18 percent to close at 6,963.44.
The gains were led by holding firms, which rose by 2.29 percent. The services and property counters also gained over 1 percent while the financial and industrial counters posted modest gains.
Only the mining/oil counter declined (-1.26 percent).
Value turnover for the day amounted to P8.94 billion. There were 106 advancers which edged out 71 decliners while 43 stocks were unchanged.
The gains were led by Megaworld and Petron, which both rose by over 5 percent while SMIC gained 4.16 percent. AC, EDC and AGI also rose by over 3 percent while AEV and JG Summit were up by over 2 percent.
GTCAP gained 1 percent while PLDT and SM Prime also firmed up.
Outside of the PSEi, the notable gainers were DoubleDragon (+8.02 percent) and RRHI (+2.38 percent).
On the other hand, the PSEi’s gains were tempered by the decline of MPI (-4.43 percent) and BDO (-1.4 percent).
URC, Metrobank and Jollibee also slipped.
“Risk assets continued to trade well in the overnight session albeit momentum has slowed as investors await US February employment report later this week. Major central bank meetings – ECB (European Central Bank), BoJ (Bank of Japan) and Fed (US Federal Reserve) – over next couple of weeks may also be keeping investors cautious of taking large directional exposure. Equities and commodities continued to move higher,” Citigroup said in a research note.
