PH shares up on bargain-hunting

Investors looking for bargains just before trading ended prevented the stock market from retreating anew on Wednesday.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) inched up by 0.49 percent or 26.95 points to finish at its intraday high of 5,523.78, while the broader All Shares improved by 0.49 percent or 16.10 points to close at 3,329.12.

In a market comment, Philstocks Financial Inc. said “late-day bargain-hunting sent the local bourse up.”

Philstocks research associate Piper Chaucer Tan said the rally was “caused by investors respecting the 5,500 support line for the market.”

According to him, market pessimism in the early hours of Wednesday’s trading was caused by renewed US-China trade tensions.

Tam said investors were also cashing in ahead of the MSCI rebalancing on Friday.

Wall Street closed in the green, with the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq gaining 3.57 percent, 3.94 percent and 6.99 percent, respectively.

Asian markets were mixed. Tokyo improved by 0.7 percent, Seoul inched up by 0.07 percent, Jakarta was up 0.13 percent and Bangkok rose by 0.24 percent. Shanghai fell by 0.34 percent, Hong Kong shed 0.48 percent, Singapore lost 0.63 percent and Ho Chi Minh was down 1.34 percent.

In Manila, most sectors rallied, led by mining and oil at 2.95 percent. Services shed 0.29 percent and and property slipped by 0.26 percent.

Total volume turnover was at 1.51 billion shares, valued at P5.5 billion.

Winners led losers, 99 to 78, while 47 securities were unchanged.