PSEi gains slightly

Philippine stocks took a breather Tuesday after a steep loss the previous session, with the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rising 0.05 percent, or 3.67 points, to 6,834.04.

The all-shares index, however, was down 0.05 percent, or 2.02 points, to 4,100.61, data from the Philippine Stock Exchange showed.

A total of 1.41 billion shares changed hands valued at P5.7 billion. Despite the slight gain, there were still 114 decliners against 65 firms that rose Tuesday while 45 companies closed unchanged.

Subsectors, meanwhile, were mixed. Gainers were led by mining and oil, up 0.62 percent, followed by holding firms, up 0.22 percent, and financials, up 0.06 percent. In the red were industrial and property companies, down 0.29 percent and 0.06 percent, while services also slipped 0.06 percent.

Conglomerate Ayala Corp. was the most actively traded stock as it sank 0.54 percent to P643 a share.

This was followed by LT Group Inc. (up 3.79 percent to P15.88), BDO Unibank (up 0.5 percent to P90.55), Ayala Land Inc. (unchanged at P30.80) and Alliance Global Group Inc. (up 0.90 percent to P28.10).

Rounding out the top 10 active issues were Nickel Asia Corp. (up 5 percent to P35.50), Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (down 0.13 percent to P3,006), SM Investments Corp. (down 0.25 percent to P786), Universal Robina Corp. (down 0.7 percent to P155.40) and SM Prime Holdings Inc. (up 0.25 percent to P15.94). Miguel R. Camus