PSEi hits 7,700 for 1st time this year
THE LOCAL stock barometer rallied to the 7,700 mark for the first time this year on Tuesday as rising bets of a gradual increase in interest rates by the US central bank boosted risk appetite across emerging markets.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index gained 112.32 points or 1.48 percent to close at 7,710.54, buoyed by foreign buying in the local market which in turn tracked upbeat regional markets.
The latest clues given out by the US Federal Reserve are seen to push back earlier expectations of the Fed raising rates as early as June or July.
“Fed chair (Janet) Yellen gave an optimistic yet cautious assessment of the outlook, saying additional rate hikes may be appropriate. However, Yellen did not give any concrete indication of when the next hike might be. Our base case remains September,” said American investment bank BofA Merrill Lynch said in a reserve note.
“Yellen cited various sources of uncertainty to the outlook that justified a continued gradual policy normalization process,” the note said.
The closing level on Tuesday marked the PSEi’s best level since May 26, 2015 when the index closed at 7,728.50.
Since the start of the year, the main index has now gained 758.46 points or 10.91 percent.
All counters rallied led by the property sub-index which rose by 2.02 percent. Value turnover amounted to P10.24 billion. There were 126 advancers that edged out 81 decliners while 39 stocks were unchanged. There was P2.45 billion in net foreign buying for the day.
AP led the day’s rally with its 6.3 percent gain while gaming firm Bloomberry rose by 4.69 percent. MPI also rose by 4.4 percent.
ALI, PLDT, BDO, GTCAP, Jollibee and EDC all advanced by over 2 percent while JG Summit, SM Prime and Megaworld all rose by over 1 percent.
Metrobank, URC and AEV also contributed to the day’s gains.
On the other hand, SMIC and Globe both modestly slipped.
