Local shares rally, taking notes from Asian equities

MANILA, Philippines — Local shares started the week upbeat as they took cues from regional equities amid China's decision to stick to its COVID-zero policy that harmed its economy but investors are optimistic that pandemic curbs would soon ease.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index surged 1.78% to close at 6,295.58 on Monday. The broader All Shares index rose 1.22% while most of the sub-indices inched up by more than 1%. 

For April Lee Tan, research head for publicly-listed brokerage COL Financial, the local bourse followed Asian stock markets today.

"I think we benefitted from the strong performance of other Asian indices," she said in a Viber message.

Regional equities landed in the green as Hong Kong soared by 3%, while Seoul rose 0.9%, Taipei was up 1.5% and Sydney was up 0.6%. Jakarta added 0.2%, while Singapore was flat.

"Seems like people don't believe that the zero-COVID policy will be kept. Even though the government continues to deny," Tan added.

On the other hand, Luis Limlingan, head of sales at local brokerage Regina Capital, credited the market’s rosy performance to the release of US jobs data. 

“Investors made bets ahead of a handful of economic data releases this week, including the [September] figures on merchants' wholesale inventories (Nov 9) and the latest CPI print on Nov 10,” he said in a Viber message. 

Lance Soledad, research associate at China Bank Securities, agreed with Limlingan's assessment.

"The local market trudged higher for the day as it enjoyed positive spillover from offshore markets following the U.S. markets’ rally last Friday. Upbeat earnings releases today may have also contributed to investors' optimism," he said in an emailed commentary.

"Given the rally, next resistance to watch out for is at 6,380," Soledad added.

The local market trudged higher for the day as it enjoyed positive spillover from offshore markets following the U.S. markets’ rally last Friday. Upbeat earnings releases today may have also contributed to investors' optimism. Given the rally, next resistance to watch out for is at 6,380.

In the Philippines, economic data, such as employment data and third-quarter gross domestic product data is set to be released this week. That said, the latest inflation figures came out last week indicating the prices of goods and services hitting their fastest pace of growth in nearly a decade. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas assured markets of another rate hike to match the US Federal Reserve's

Foreign investors bought P391.21 million more shares than they sold in the stock market. A total of million 337.75 million stocks, valued at P4.48 billion, switched hands on Monday. — with AFP