Philippine stocks continue winning streak

MANILA, Philippines - Local prices continued to enjoy a festive mood despite the gloomy state of global markets as the benchmark index prolonged its winning streak for an eight session in a row.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose 0.44 percent or 31.96 points to settle at 7,300 level, finishing at 7,309.70 while the all shares index gained 0.39 percent or 16.88 points at 4,302.62.

“The Philippines continue to remain resilient in light of the declining crude oil prices. Investors are seeing that the country is shielded from catastrophic events such as this. In fact, it (the sliding oil prices)  is even beneficial for a country like ours,” said Alexander Tiu, analyst at AB Capital Securities Inc.

Brent crude oil prices reportedly plunged to a record low since May 2009 at $50 a barrel.

Tiu said the stock market on Wednesday continued to ride high on lower than expected inflation data released the previous day.

December inflation slowed down for the fourth consecutive month to 2.7 percent from 3.7 percent the previous month.

“The result pushed the index up and helped it buck global downfalls,” Tiu said.

Abroad, Wall Street remained to be depressed as all major indexes ended in the red.

Locally, all counters except one closed in the positive territory led by the mining and oil and industrial firms which increased by 2.47 percent and 1.08 percent, respectively.

Financials firms were the sole losers for the trading day, shedding off 0.76 percent or 12.87 points.