MANILA -The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rallied over 6,500 on Monday, erasing losses over the past five sessions, on hopes the prevailing monetary tightening cycle is ending.
The PSEi jumped 2.03 percent, or 129.54 points, to 6,523.09 while the broader All Shares index added 1.63 percent, or 55.71 points, to 3,470.46. Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno earlier shared his view that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) would take a “long pause” in raising rates as inflation expectations cool.
Juan Paolo Colet, managing director at investment bank China Bank Capital Corp., called Monday’s rally “the best single day performance of PSE this year.”
He said sentiments were aided by the “prospect that the BSP will no longer raise its policy rate for the rest of the year.”
READ: BSP policy rate kept at 6.25%
All subsectors closed higher with industrials and holding firms leading the pack with gains of 2.47 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.
Notable gains were also seen in Metro Pacific Investments Corp., which jumped nearly 4 percent. Metro Pacific is trading above its proposed tender offer price of P2.59 amid an ongoing review on the company’s valuation.
Still, trading volume remained thin with 513.77 million shares valued at P4.3 billion changing hands. Foreigners ended mostly as buyers of a net amount of P708.3 million.
BDO Unibank Inc. was the top traded stock as it ended flat at P140 per share. It was followed by SM Investments Corp., up 2.14 percent to P929 and Metro Pacific, up 3.71 percent to P4.75.
Overall, there were 100 advancers against 70 losers while 56 companies closed unchanged, data from the stock exchange showed. INQ
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