Share prices continue to break records

THE LOCAL stocks index on Tuesday surged to a new record high, breaching 5,700 as investors stockpiled ahead of what is expected to be a buoyant 2013.

Defying the regional market trend, the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index racked up 33.58 points, or 0.59 percent, to close at an all-time high of 5,706.28.

The local market marked a new high for the 34th time this year.

All counters contributed to the day’s upswing, led by the property sub-index (+1.19 percent). Value turnover amounted to P7.93 billion.

Despite the overall gain, investors were mostly selective in loading up more stocks at lofty valuations. As such, there were 76 advancers, narrowly edging out the 75 decliners, while 56 stocks were unchanged.

The PSEi was led higher by RLC, URC, SM Prime, Philex, AGI, AEV, JGS, BDO, BPI and AP.

Elsewhere in the region, trading was muted by a weak US factory data for November, which showed a three-year low in output.  Doris C. Dumlao