Stocks continue to rebound

The local stock market rallied sharply on Friday as investor sentiment remained buoyant despite a weaker-than-anticipated first-quarter economic growth in China.

Taking a cue from a strong performance in Wall Street overnight, the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index added 50.52 points or 1 percent to close at 5,097.30.

The index ended in positive territory for the second consecutive session as the market started to shake off a long Lenten holiday hangover.  This allowed the index to gain 58.38 points or 1.12 percent this week.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P5.7 billion. Buying was more selective than broad-based, however, as there were only 78 advancers against 83 decliners while 47 stocks were unchanged.

The market was supported by the holding firm, property and mining/oil counters whose sectoral indices rose 1.7 percent, 1.39 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.

An outperformer among index stocks was JG Summit, whose share price surged another 7.2 percent to P33.50. This was after CLSA Asia-Pacific initiated coverage on JGS with a “buy” recommendation and a 12-month target price of P43. Food unit URC likewise benefited, rising 3.84 percent.

Other index gainers were AGI, Metrobank, SMIC, AC, Megaworld, AP, DMCI and EDC. Investors also bought shares of NiHao, Megawide, Security Bank and Puregold.

A failed rocket launch by North Korea and the stronger-than-expected Philippine export earnings in February also added to the positive sentiment in the market, some analysts said.

Investors were emboldened by a second day of big gains in Wall Street as the Dow Jones Industrial index surged 181.19 points or 1.41 percent overnight. The Dow Jones futures index, however, was down about 40 points after it was reported that China had grown at its slowest pace in nearly three years in the first quarter. China reported a gross domestic product growth of 8.1 percent year-on-year for the first quarter, a pace which was slower than the market consensus. Doris C. Dumlao