The local stock barometer conquered the 7,900 mark on Tuesday, riding on the strength of US and regional markets.
The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) added 64.11 points or 0.81 percent to close at 7,955.24, led by selected large-cap stocks.
“Global equities markets inched higher as investors remain optimistic on a fair deal between China and the US Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said earlier (Tuesday) that any problem could be resolved if both sides respected each other. He stated that the two nations should work together rather than completely sever ties with each other,” AAA Equities head of research Christopher Mangun said.
The PSEi has gone up for the second day in a row, breaching the 7,920 resistance level, Mangun noted.
“Trading volumes picked up because of several cross trades done by a handful of brokerages. Selling pressure has been very light since last week, which has allowed bargain hunters to have a bigger effect on price movements,” Mangun said.
“If the index can sustain this momentum, we may see it break above 8,000 before the end of the week,” he added.
The market was led higher by the holding firm and mining/oil counters, which both added over 1 percent. The financial, services and property counters also gained.
Only the industrial counter ended lower, losing 0.2 percent.
Value turnover for the day improved to P6.04 billion while some P156 million worth of net foreign buying also perked up the market.
Despite the PSEi’s gain, market breadth was negative. There were 94 decliners that outnumbered 85 advancers, while 61 stocks were unchanged.
JG Summit rose by nearly 3 percent while BPI added over 2 percent.
Metro Pacific, GT Capital and Megaworld rose by nearly 2 percent while Metrobank, Ayala Corp., SM Prime and Security Bank all advanced by over 1 percent.
SM Investments, the day’s most actively traded company, rose by 0.9 percent.
On the other hand, Ayala Land, BDO, RRHI and URC all slipped.