Phl stocks buck regional downtrend

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine stock market rallied late in yesterday’s session to overcome early losses brought about by influences of its regional peers.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) managed to eke out a 0.05 percent or 3.83-percent gain to avoid ending on what would have been its first back-to-back week-on-week decline for the year.

The broader all shares index, meanwhile, picked up a more modest gain of 0.19 percent or 8.53 points to close at 4,529.31.

“Sessions traded flat, with a downward bias, as players digested other catalysts that could ramp-up the market above 7,850,” said Jason Escartin, investment analyst at F Yap Securities.

“Declines stayed limited overall, as investors have priced-in the Fed’s modest interest rate increase by the second half,” he added.

Asian stocks were mostly in the red as earlier inspiration provided by the Federal Reserve’s announcement of going slow in hiking interest rates have worn off.

Bloomberry Resorts Corp. of port and casino magnate Enrique Razon Jr. was among yesterday’s top gainers after the company reported the previous day that it went back to profitability last year amid all-time high gaming and non-gaming revenues. Bloomberry share price rose 3.25 percent.

Across the board, however, market breadth stayed negative as decliners crushed advancers, 105 to 76, while 41 stocks were unchanged.

Turnover value was flat at P14.83 billion.