Wall Street gains buoy local stocks

MANILA, Philippines — Local stocks advanced for a third consecutive session behind positive cues from Wall Street.

The benchmark Philippines Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gained by 0.37 percent or 22.89 points to close yesterday’s session at 6,168.48.

The broader All Shares index also finished higher, inching up by 0.18 percent or 6.64 points to 3,658.78.

“Philippine shares booked minor gains as investors brushed off US-China trade tensions tracking the US market movement with a sharp rebound,” Luis Limlingan of Regina Capita said.

He said US equities rose on Tuesday as investors regained confidence, fueled by optimism that US-China trade tensions may soon ease.

Michael Ricafort, chief economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., said the PSEi gained or the third straight trading day after some improved signals from US President Trump that led to gains in the US stocks.

Net value turnover expanded to P7.63 billion from the previous day’s P4.31 billion.

Sectoral gauges were a mixed bag, with services posting the biggest gain at 2.89 percent, while mining and oil incurred the biggest loss at 2.55 percent.

Market breadth, however, was negative as decliners edged out advancers, 97 to 92, while 56 issues were unchanged.

ICSTI was yesterday’s top traded stock, surging by 4.13 percent to P353 per share, followed by BDO Unibank which fell by 1.23 percent to P161 and Ayala Land which increased by 0.82 percent to P24.60.