PSEi recovers, but still down for the week
LOCAL SHARES managed to recover towards the end of the trading day after falling early on Friday, giving investors some respite from a week that has seen some stocks stumbling on negative sentiments on those in the water business.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed 1.55% higher to end the week at 7,773.12, while the all shares index rose by 0.87% to 4,598.83. Most sectoral indices finished on a positive note.
Piper Chaucer E. Tan, client engagement officer and research associate at Philstocks Financial, Inc., said the market during the first half of the trading session plunged by almost 1.5%.
“Then the market recovered in the afternoon session of the trading day, respecting the 7,700 support line as investors hunt for bargain stocks and take position since the market has been battered by the sentiments coming from the water woes,” he said.
Mr. Tan said US markets’ good performance because of economic data and its shrugging off the impeachment case against US President Donald Trust contributed to the recovery of local shares.
“The market also was fueled by the locals since net foreign selling registered at P1.2[71] billion” compared to Thursday’s bigger P2.048 billion, he said.
Foreign buying on Friday was at P9.18 billion, compared to P10.45 billion in foreign selling.
Japhet Louis O. Tantiango, research associate at Philstocks Financial Inc., said aside from last-minute bargain hunting, the day’s trading was also active with value turnover reaching P13.153 billion, compared to Thursday’s P12.599 billion.
Week-on-week, however, PSEi was still down 1.33% from 7,877.63 last Dec. 13.
“… [W]e can attribute this first to the utility contagion which started with the water firms. At the same time, for this week, our market experienced huge foreign fund outflows,” Mr. Tantiango said.
He said the local market had been posting net foreign outflows for all five trading days of the week amounting to P5.9 billion.
He added that trading “had conviction” this week with value turnover averaging P10 billion, or above the P7.3 billion year-to-date average.
Only one of the six sectoral indices lost on Friday: industrials, by 130.73 points or 1.37% to end 9,367.59.
The rest gained: holding firms by 190.06 points or 2.56% to 7,599.65, financials by 31.2 points or 1.72% to 1,843.16, mining & oil by 101.65 points or 1.35% to 7,586.74 and property by 51.74 points or 1.26% 4,139.54, while services was flat as it edged up just 0.4 points or 0.02% to finish at 1,533.34.
Still, stocks that declined edged out those that advanced 92 to 78, while 55 others ended flat. — Victor V. Saulon
