PSEi higher as on-target US inflation calms battered Wall Street

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) saw a rebound on Wednesday but fell short of reclaiming the 6,500 level even as US banking crisis worries eased and Wall Street bounced higher overnight.

By the closing bell, the PSEi rose 1.14 percent, or 72.77 points, to 6,466.10 while the broader All Shares index rose 0.7 percent, or 24.04 points, to 3,478.52.

The local market followed a recovery in US share prices as investors bet that recent US banking failures might convince the powerful US Federal Reserve to consider less aggressive interest rate hikes.

The US Labor Department said on Wednesday inflation cooled to 6 percent in February, which was within expectations.

Some banking stocks started to recover, pushing up the financials subsector by 1.67 percent. Industrial stocks grew 1.76 percent while holding firms rose 1.48 percent.

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Property stocks shed 0.44 percent, followed by mining and oil and services, which closed lower by 0.52 percent and 0.07 percent, respectively.

A total of 1.2 billion shares valued at P11.07 billion changed hands, which included a P4.85-billion block sale of Monde Nissin Corp. shares.

This caused net foreign selling to swell to P4.78 billion on Wednesday, stock exchange data showed.

International Container Terminal Services Inc. was the most actively traded stock as it slipped 1.10 percent to P197.70 per share.

It was followed by BDO Unibank Inc., up 4.10 percent to P124.30; Ayala Land Inc., up 0.76 percent to P26.50; SM Prime Holdings Inc., down 1.02 percent to P34.05; and Wilcon Depot Inc., down 5.17 percent to P27.50 per share.

Overall, there were 103 advancers against 80 losers while 48 companies closed unchanged. INQ

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