PSEi back at 7,700

The local stock barometer rebounded strongly Thursday, retesting the 7,700 mark, as some investors hunted for bargains even as foreign investors continued to pare down their local stockholdings.

Bouncing from a rough start, the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) recovered 162.41 points or 2.15 percent to close at 7,708.42.

“The PSEi shrugged off a slow start despite US stocks (having) closed narrowly mixed as further weakness in oil prices after a weekly inventory data showed an unexpected decline in US crude-oil inventories but an increase in stockpiles of refined products,” said Luis Gerardo Limlingan, managing director at local stock brokerage Regina Capital Development.

Limlingan noted that stock markets had been whipsawed in recent weeks by mixed views on interest rate increases by US Federal Reserve officials.

“Our own forecast is for the next rate hike to be moved to December, as historically no decision is made prior to election,” he said.

“Most notably the PSEi was trading flat most of the session with some foreign brokers buying up stocks at the last minute on bargain-hunting,” he added.

Buying, however, was still driven by local money. There was still about P420 million in net foreign selling for the day, marking the 16th straight session of foreign outflows from the local bourse.

Except for the services counter, which slipped by 1.07 percent, all other sub-indices were up. The financial, holding firm and property counters all surged more than 2 percent while the industrial counter was up more than 1 percent. The mining/oil counter was modestly higher.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P8.04 billion. There were 110 advancers that edged out 75 decliners while 54 stocks were unchanged. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla