PLDT, SM fuel index rise

MANILA, Philippines–The main local stocks index gained on Monday as investors gobbled up selective blue chips, particularly PLDT and SM Investments, shrugging off the devastation caused by tropical storm Sendong in Mindanao.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index added 13.18 points or 0.31 percent to close at 4,318.12.

“The Philippines is outperforming the region and is the only one with an index that is likely to end higher from last week,” said Jose Mari Lacson, head of research at local stock brokerage Campos Lanuza & Co.

“The most surprising development here is that PLDT has breached the P2,500 level – for the first time since November 2010. Investors appear to be looking positively at the merger between PLDT and Digitel with this vote of confidence and are ignoring the dilution risk once new shares are issued in payment for Sun Cellular,” Lacson said.

He said investors were also ignoring the potential effects of tropical storm Sendong.

“By our count, SM Prime and Ayala Land have mall exposures in Cagayan de Oro. ALI is building Centris in CDO while SMPH has an existing mall in CDO already,” Lacson said.

The services counter gained 1 percent, outperforming other sub-indices, with the gains eked out by PLDT, whose share price went up by 1.52 percent to P2,534 per share.

SM shares surged by 3.1 percent to P547.50 each.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P5.1 billion.

Despite the overall index gain, there were only 62 advancers which were outnumbered by 78 decliners while 55 stocks were unchanged. Aside from PLDT and SM Investments, ALI, Cebu Air and DMCI also aided the main index. Non-PSEi stocks PNB, Puregold and NiHao also gained in heavy trade.

On the other hand, the index decliners were BDO, AGI, AP, AEV, AC, EDC,MPIC,ICTSI and  Megaworld. Lepanto A (for local investors) also traded lower.