Market touches 6,800-pt level for first time this year

MANILA, Philippines - Market optimism pushed the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) past the 6,800 level for the first time this year before profit taking tempered gains in yesterday’s trading.

The main composite index gained 0.26 percent or 17.44 points to 6,784.95, marking its fourth straight day in the green. It was the PSEi’s best since closing at 6,800.11 on July 25, 2013.

The main index hit an intraday high of 6,815.26 before some investors opted to pocket gains.

“The sense optimism remains so investors continue to buy the market,” Astro del Castillo, managing director of First Grade Finance Inc., said in a phone interview.

The string of good news here and abroad encouraged investors to buy more stocks while lagging companies found a chance to post gains, Del Castillo said.

For instance, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas kept its inflation targets for this year until 2016, signifying a benign uptick in consumer prices. The central bank said inflation targets have been maintained at three to five percent for this year, and at two to four percent for both 2015 and 2016.

Overseas, Wall Street slightly improved on Monday despite weak volume as investors positioned ahead of the release of corporate earnings data late this week.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.25 percent or 40.71 points to close at 16,449.25, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.38 percent or 7.04 points to 1,871.89.

Closer to home, Asian stocks were mixed, dragged by the decline in Chinese stocks given concerns on over supply, with 28 new firms planning to join the stock exchange.

Locally, almost all counters ended in positive territory, led by holding firms that rose 0.71 percent or 43.44 points to 6,189.26. But profit taking hit the property sector that shed 0.05 percent or 1.30 points to 2,661.80.

Advancers outpaced decliners anew, 107 to 77, while 33 stocks did not change. The value of shares that changed hands improved to P10.35 billion from P8.77 billion on Monday.

Most active shares ended in the positive territory, led by SM Investments Corp. (+1.15 percent), BDO Unibank Inc. (+0.28 percent) and Megaworld Corp. (+2.24 percent).

But top-traded Ayala Land Inc. slipped 0.81 percent while index heavyweight PLDT fell 0.21 percent.

The main index’s pullback late in the trading session is a hint of profit taking that might persist in the next few days, del Castillo said.