Stocks surge 1.81%

Local stocks rallied sharply Monday on the back of a technical rebound as well as fresh prospects of a bailout of Spanish banks and a global trend in monetary easing.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index surged 90.32 points or 1.81 percent to close at 5,084.39. All counters traded in the green but the day’s outperformer was the interest rate-sensitive property counter, which jumped 3.09 percent.

Value turnover amounted to P10.66 billion, including a block transaction of Manila Electric Co. worth about P5.4 billion as some 60 million shares were traded at P90 each.

There were 103 advancers versus 43 decliners while 42 stocks were unchanged.

Trading was upbeat elsewhere in the region as the prospective bailout of ailing Spanish banks was seen to temper the contagion in the euro zone.

Dealers have been expecting the main index to retest the 5,100 resistance this week.

Investment bank Credit Agricole CIB said in a research note on Monday that the better performance of risky assets in the last few days could be explained by three main factors.

“First, it can be interpreted as a technical rebound after the downward trend recorded in previous weeks. Then soft data, as surveys and sentiment measures have been generally a little better than expected. Finally, market participants are tempted to take a positive reading of the latest events on the monetary policy front,” it said, citing the official policy rate cuts in Australia and China.