Index continues bull run ahead of Q4 data

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine stocks displayed toughness yesterday  with the benchmark index hitting a new record high ahead of the country’s fourth quarter gross domestic product growth announcement.

The PSEi surged 30.61 points to zoom into an all new record high of 7,661.18.

Several analysts were already expecting the local market to take a breather heading into Wednesday’s session due to a slowdown in the US market.

Wall Street indexes took a plunge overnight, with the Nasdaq shedding off 1.89 percent, the Dow stepping back by 1.65 percent, and the S&P 500 losing 1.34 percent.

The local market, however, showed no signs of stopping its bull run, capitalizing on early gains.

“The PSEI struggled the rest of the way eventually caving in to selling pressure just under an hour to the close. But the resiliency of the bourse showed up to save the day,” said Justino Calaycay Jr., analyst at Accord Capital Equites Corp. 

Local counters were all in the green except for financial firms which dipped 0.37 percent or 6.53 points.

No counter gained by more than one percent yesterday, but holding firms and industrial firms came close, improving by 0.94 percent and 0.83 percent, respectively.

Market breadth, however, turned out negative as decliners beat advancers, 94 to 78, while 48 stocks were unchanged.

Turnover value fell slightly to P8.19 billion from P8.63 billion the previous day.