Philippine stocks rebound

MANILA, Philippines—Most local stocks rebounded on Wednesday as optimism about the upcoming second-quarter corporate results overshadowed offshore jitters over the US debt crisis.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index added 17.02 points, or 0.38 percent, to finish at 4,482.89.

Investors scooped up stocks from the financial, industrial, holding firms and property counters but locked up gains from services and mining/oil.

Turnover improved to P5.1 billion from the previous day’s P4.31 billion. There were 72 advancers, which narrowly outnumbered 70 decliners while 44 stocks were unchanged.

Foreign investors helped perk up the market as there was P167 million in net foreign buying for the day.

Analysts said the local market was looking forward to some positive surprises in the forthcoming stream of second-quarter corporate results.

Megaworld, Banco de Oro, Philex, Metrobank, FLI, Ayala Corp. and BPI led the index higher. Non-index stocks GERI, Atlas, ORE and San Miguel Corp.

On the other hand, the PSEi’s gains were tempered by the decline of SM Investments, Lepanto “A” (reserved for local investors) and “B” (open to both local and foreign investors), PLDT, AGI, EDC and First Gen.

Meanwhile, the stalemate over the US debt ceiling limit continued to temper risk-taking. Overnight, the closely watched Dow Jones Industrial Index fell by 91.5 points, or 0.73 percent, to 12,501.30.