PSEi gains 1.07%, stays above 6500 level

The local stock barometer rose on Tuesday to its highest level since the coronavirus pandemic prompted harsh lockdown measures in March, tracking firmer US and regional markets.Gaining for the second straight session, the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) advanced by 69.84 points, or 1.07 percent, to close at 6,583.84.The continued strength of the US markets helped perk up the local market despite the PSEi flashing overbought signals in the near term, local stock brokerage Papa Securities said.But an overbought relative strength index was potentially showing signs of exhaustion, the brokerage said. On the downside, Papa Securities sees market support at the 6,000 to 6,200 levels.In Wall Street, investors deemed the better-than-expected US jobs data as an indication that the US economy was recovering faster than expected from the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But AAA Equities head of research Christopher Mangun noted that gains in Asian markets were limited on Tuesday as the momentum had slowed.

“Investors are now beginning to focus on the pace of the recovery and how long before economic activity returns to prepandemic levels,” Mangun said.At the local market, he said there were growing concerns that the rally was overextended, which might soon lead to a strong pullback.

“Investors remain active, which is evident in the above-average trading volumes that we are seeing. Foreign investors are still mainly undecided as fund flows go back and forth. We may see the main index retreat toward the end of the week,” Mangun said.All counters ended higher but the best-performing counters were the industrial and services subindices, which both surged by over 2.7 percent. The mining/oil counter added 1.8 percent, while the financial, holding firm and property counters all rose by less than 1 percent.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P8.54 billion. There was minimal net foreign buying worth P62.32 million.

There were 135 advancers that edged out 73 decliners, while 43 stocks were unchanged. INQ