Philippine stock prices bounce back

MANILA, Philippines—Local stock prices rebounded on Thursday as selective buying of blue chips offset the weakness in index heavyweight PLDT, which is still hounded by a Supreme Court ruling questioning the company’s foreign equity ownership.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index added 41.86 points or 0.98 percent to finish at 4,291.21.

All counters were up except for the services sector, which was weighed down by PLDT which fell by another P12 or 0.52 percent to P2,312 as investors worried about the impact of a recent Supreme Court ruling.

The star performer for the day was the mining/oil counter, which surged by 2.7 percent.  The industrial, holding firms and property counters were all up by over 1 percent.

Turnover amounted to P5.57 billion.  There were 105 advancers, which overwhelmed 40 decliners, while 42 stocks were unchanged.

SMC, AGI, SM Investments, Lepanto “A”, BPI, Aboitiz Power, Philex, ALI, Atlas, AEV, Meralco, EDC, Security Bank, Globe, SM Prime, Metro Pacific Investments and Jollibee were among the day’s advancers.

Apart from PLDT, Metrobank and Ayala Corp. traded in the red.