Languid trading up ahead at the stock market

The stock market is seen to remain sluggish this week as investors await developments on the local coronavirus contagion.

Last week, the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) slipped by 0.77 percent or 50.36 points to close at 6,494.81.

BDO Unibank chief strategist Jonathan Ravelas said the week’s finish signaled the market could still test the 6,300 levels in the near-term.
“Any rally could just be limited toward the 6,700 levels,” Ravelas said.

Papa Securities said any sort of catalyst might still come toward the end of the month as updates on the quarantine situation become more clear. “Until then however, sideways movement with a low value turnover could become the theme for the entire market,” Papa Securities said.

The brokerage sees initial support and resistance levels for the PSEi at 6,300 to 6,700. But it noted that technicals continued to be “biased toward the downward direction given the underlying trend.”

Meanwhile, overseas Filipinos sent home 5.3 percent more cash in February than the same month last year, hitting $2.76 billion. This overshot market expectations of a 2-percent gain as economies of host countries continued to reopen and sea-based Filipinos benefited from the global trade pickup, ING Philippines economist Nicholas Mapa said.

For the first two months, total remittances of $5.08 billion grew by 1.5 percent compared to the same period last year.

Mapa expects remittance flows to remain positive in the coming months.

—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla INQ