Listless trading rules market; PSEi hardly moves

The local stock barometer hardly budged on Wednesday, mirroring mostly listless trading across regional markets.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) added 2.07 points, or 0.03 percent to close at 5,925.30.

“The PSEi ended flat once again as the efforts of some US drugmakers to come up with an effective vaccine and therapeutic (solution) to the COVID-19 disease was halted. Wall Street participants also parsed earnings from some of the biggest financial institutions, to start the third-quarter reporting season,” said Luis Gerardo Limlingan, managing director at Regina Capital Development.

The local market was shored up by the financial counter, which gained 1.25 percent.

The industrial, mining/oil and property counters all rose by less than 1 percent.

On the other hand, the holding firm and services counters both declined by less than 1 percent.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P5.97 billion. There was P619.22 million worth of net foreign selling for the day.

There were 101 advancers that edged out 80 decliners, while 60 stocks were unchanged.

The PSEi was led higher by Metro Pacific, which surged by 5.05 percent.

BPI and Metrobank both rose by over 2 percent, boosting the financial counter. AEV also added 2.16 percent.

Ayala Land added 1 percent, while Globe Telecom, Jollibee and BDO all rose by less than 1 percent.

Many actively traded stocks were those outside the PSEi basket. The most actively traded company for the day was third telco player Dito, which rose by 4.19 percent.—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla INQ