Bargain hunting, Wall St gains boost index by 12 pts

Share prices shot higher yesterday as bargain hunters took to the floor, taking early positions on blue chip stocks ahead of today’s start of the impeachment trial against President Estrada.

The 30-company Phisix gyrated in positive terrain for the entire session to close at 1,393.29, higher by 12.06 points or 0.87 percent from the previous day to snap out from an eight-day downtrend.

The broader All-Shares index likewise inched north, adding 8.48 points or 1.17 percent to 731.80.

The upbeat sentiment in the US markets also seemed to have rubbed off on the local bourse, as hints of an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve and a foreseen end to the fight for the White House post powered the Dow Jones Industrial Index up 3.21 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq to its biggest one-day gain in history at 10.50 percent.

Turnover, however, barely improved to a shade under P600 million, indicating that most investors are still opting to wait-and-see on the developments of the impeachment proceedings before committing funds for the fragile stockmarket.

The commercial-industrial, finance and property counters all advanced, leaving the oil and mining sectors unchanged.

Gainers beat losers almost two-to-one, 42 to 19, while 35 other issues were steady.

With most of the blue chips propelling the rise in the indices, speculations were rife that the government financial institutions (GFIs) again went to work, partly in preparation for the anticipated year-end window-dressing in their investment portfolio.

The four top traded stocks all posted gains, with Globe Telecom’s PDRs adding P30 to P680; semiconductor maker Ionics Corp. moving up 25 centavos to P16.25; PLDT padding P5 to P800; and Meralco B improving by P1 to P44.

Other heavyweight stocks that landed in the greens were Ayala Corp. and Ayala Land (both up 10 centavos to P7.20 and P4.75, respectively); Metrobank (up P1 to P168); ABS-CBN PDRs (up 50 centavos to P47); Filinvest Land (up eight centavos to P1.30); Benpres Holdings (up 10 centavos to P2.76); Sun Life (up P5 to P1,025); and Manulife (up P35 to P1,290).

Gaming stocks Fairmont Holdings and Belle Corp., on the other hand, were on the profit-taking side this time, with the online bingo operator sliding four centavos to P1.32 and the jai-alai franchisee dropping three centavos to P0.70.