Philippine stocks up on window-dressing, selective play, credit upgrade

Photo from pse.com.ph

MANILA, Philippines—The local stocks index gained on Tuesday on the back of month-end window-dressing, a play on selective index stocks and a fresh sovereign credit rating upgrade for the Philippines.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index rallied by 29.25 points, or 0.54 percent, to close at 5,426.67.

The upswing was led by the industrial counter (+1.9 percent), in turn fueled by the hefty gains of URC (+4.9 percent), Meralco (+4.05 percent) and EDC (+3.33 percent).

Dealers said there was a late-session surge in buying, particularly of EDC on speculation that its BacMan plant would finally be operational very soon.

In the case of Meralco, the electricity distributor has upgraded its 2012 core net profit guidance to P16 billion after chalking up P12.9 billion in the first nine months.

Other PSEi stocks that contributed to the day’s gains were Metrobank, AC, AGI, SM Prime, PLDT, BPI and AP.

Among second-liners, FPH (+3.49 percent) benefited from EDC’s rise. Gaming firm Bloomberry was up by 2.08 percent.

On the other hand, index stocks like ALI, SMIC, DMCI, BDO and Megaworld closed lower on Tuesday.

There was likewise profit-taking on APM (-3.27 percent) following news of its capital restructuring that will boost par value of shares to P1 each.  Philweb was also down by 1.27 percent.