PSEi closes above 7,500

THE LOCAL stock barometer bucked a regional downturn on Thursday, firming above the 7,500 level, aided by foreign buying into local equities.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index added 62.82 points or 0.84 percent to close at 7,564.47.

“Philippine equities became a refuge as regional markets continued to weaken based on current economic data,” said Luis Gerardo Limlingan, managing director of local brokerage house Regina Capital Development.

In the United States, Limlingan said officials have scaled back expectations of interest rate increases in 2017 and 2018.

“They now only foresee three increases in each of those years, down from the four they expected in March, according to their latest median forecast. (US Federal Reserve chair Janet) Yellen in the past has ascribed the low level of rates mainly to lingering headwinds from the financial crisis—tight mortgage credit, for instance—and suggested that they would dissipate over time.

On Wednesday, though, she also pointed to more permanent forces that could depress rates for longer, namely, slow productivity growth and aging societies, in the United States and throughout much of the world.”

Meanwhile, Limlingan noted that the Bank of Japan had refrained from expanding monetary stimulus ahead of the UK vote on “Brexit”—referring to Britain’s potential exit from the European Union—next week that could roil global markets.

At the local market, all counters were up led by mining/oil, which rose by 2.31 percent, while the financial and industrial counters rose by over 1 percent.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P5.9 billion. There were 117 advancers that beat 61 decliners while 58 stocks were unchanged.

Despite the gloomy trading elsewhere in the region, foreign investors were net buyers amounting to P343 million.  Doris Dumlao-Abadilla