NEWS

By Jennifer B. Austria

Share prices are expected to continue consolidating above the 8,200-point level, as investors focus on the prospects of easing monetary policy and President Rodrigo Duterte’s State of the Nation Address today.

President Duterte is scheduled to deliver his 3rd SONA, where he is expected to outline his programs for the last three years of his term.

Strong inflow of foreign funds into the equities market as well as expectations that listed firms will report better second-quarter results are also boosting the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index.

“Foreign funds will continue to flow into our market as investors anticipate earnings disclosures from the rest of the blue chip stocks,” said Jervin de Celis, an equity trader from Timson Securities.

“Market participants are expecting better second quarter earnings due to slower inflation data. So far the revenue estimates look good and this may keep the PSEi above 8,000 level” he added.

“The week’s close at 8,270.07 signals the market still has some room to try the 8,500 levels in the near-term,” said BDO Unibank Inc. chief investment strategist Jonathan Ravelas
Three sectoral indices ended in positive territory, led by mining and oil which jumped 9.27 percent and financials which climbed 4.95 percent.

Three sectoral indices also registered week-on-week declines, led by industrial which dropped 0.7 percent, services which lost 0.7 percent and property slipped by 0.01 percent.

Foreign investors were net buyers for the week by P3.9 billion, while the average daily valued traded improved to P7.3 billion from the previous week’s P5.9 billion.

Weekly top price gainers were Nickel Asia Corp., which jumped 20 percent to P2.70; Bank of the Philippines Islands, which rose 14.7 percent to P93; and Semirara Mining and Power Corp., which advanced 6.6 percent to P24.

Weekly top price losers were Wilcon Depot Inc., which fell 10 percent to P15.14; Universal Robina Corp., which declined 3.3 percent to P166; and PLDT Inc., which dipped 2.2 percent to P1,187.

Wall Street stocks, meanwhile, finished a down week on a tepid note, falling after news of a tanker attack in the Middle East even as Boeing and oil-linked shares rallied.

Stocks had been in positive territory through early Friday afternoon, but fell decisively as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced they had confiscated a British tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz—a move that prompted swift criticism from the United States and Britain.

The fall also roughly coincided with a Wall Street Journal report that the Federal Reserve is targeting a 25-basis point interest rate cut, rather than the larger 50-basis point cut that investors have thought might also be enacted.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 0.3 percent lower at 27,154.20.

The broad-based S&P 500 shed 0.6 percent to 2,976.61, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.7 percent to 8,146.49.

The losses closed out a down week following the first group of major earnings reports with two more big weeks yet to come. With AFP

Source: ManilaStandard.net