Philippine stocks rise above 5,300 on gaming interests

Photo from pse.com.ph

MANILA, Philippines—The local stocks index firmed up above the 5,300 mark on Thursday led by a gaming play while regional markets mostly faltered on European debt woes.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index clawed back 8.86 points, or 0.17 percent, to close at 5,301.49, ending a two-day decline.

Trading was mixed across counters, with the property counter (+0.98 percent) providing the most support to the main index while the financial and holding firm counters also eked out small gains.

The day’s index outperformers were Belle Corp. (+5.96 percent) and AGI (+4.71 percent), both with gaming interests.  In the case of Belle, there was speculation that it would soon finalize the deal that would bring in Macau gaming firm Melco onboard its Belle Grande project.

RLC (+2.51 percent) and Semirara (+1.36 percent) also contributed gains to the index alongside SM, Megaworld, ALI, BDO, MPI and BPI.

On the other hand, the PSEi’s gains were tempered by the decline of Philex, URC, JFC, JG Summit, Metrobank, PLDT, AC, Meralco and AP.

The most actively traded stock was a non-index stock, Bloomberry, which rose by 2.39 percent in line with the day’s gaming play.