Strong holding, property issues boost market

MANILA, Philippines -  Share prices continued to climb above 4,300 yesterday led by holding firms and property stocks.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index rose 31.91 points or 0.74 percent to close at 4,335.04.

Turnover amounted to P4.62 billion.

There were 76 advancers against 56 decliners while 43 stocks were unchanged.

The holding-firm counter was up by 1.67 percent while the property counter rose by 1.09 percent.

 Mining stocks Philex Mining, Lepanto Consolidated Mining and Manila Mining Corp. went on two-day voluntary trading suspension at the PSE starting Wednesday.

In separate disclosures, the three companies said they intended to make a “material disclosure” within the next two days and thus requested the suspension of trading until after such disclosure was made.

 Manila Mining, a unit of Lepanto, was nearing a deal with Philex on a potential venture over the former’s Kalayaan property..

The PSE said it had approved the two-day trading suspension of trading in the three mining companies’ shares, which had been heavily traded in recent weeks in anticipation of the forthcoming deal.

Meanwhile, global oil prices rose on Tuesday after some early losses as investors tried to gauge where the market is headed.

Energy trader Stephen Schork said nobody’s confident about their positions after oil prices tumbled last week by the largest percentage in two and a half years. The CME Group, which owns the New York Mercantile Exchange, also raised margin requirements this week, making it more expensive to speculate in energy commodities.

“Everyone’s just tightening the reins here” on oil trades, Schork said.

Benchmark crude rose $1.33 to settle, or 1.3 percent, at $103.88 per barrel on the Nymex. The June contract plummeted by 15 percent last week before rebounding by more than five percent on Monday.– AP