Technology stocks prop up index by 8 points

Share prices bounced back after being sidelined for a day as investors played up tech stocks, driven by the record gain in the US Nasdaq board.

The 30-company composite index went up 8.69 points or barely 0.6 percent to 1478.76, helped along by the rise in PLDT, Ayala Land, SM Prime and Meralco stocks. Outside the Phisix, the All-Shares index inched up nearly one point to 620.71, resisting the drop in Sun Life and Manulife shares.

Coming off a Memorial Holiday break on Monday, the US markets bannered by the Dow Jones industrial and the Nasdaq indices posted mighty advances as investors calmed down jitters of another interest rate hike. Wall Street stocks urged 227.89 points or 2.21 percent while the Nasdaq counter recorded its biggest one-day gain in both points and percentage terms (254.26 points or 7.93 percent) on optimism that a recent shakeout in tech issues has created bargains stocks.

The bouyant mood in the US markets reverberated in Asian bourses as broad buying similarly pushed up prices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia. Only Indonesia was left out in the mild regional run up.

Analysts said the market's direction was also influenced by positive developments in the country's macroeconomic and corporate fronts, along with the relative calm in the Mindanao conflict and the absence of mall bombing incidents that earlier blasted the bourse down to a 19-month low.

The gross domestic product (GDP), the measure of the country's domestic output of goods and services, improved by 3.4 percent in the first quarter, well within most expectations but lower than the targetted four percent growth. The economic figure, although highly laudable compared with the meager 0.7 percent growth a year earlier, however trailed behind other Asian countries' performance, in particular Malaysia's spectacular 12 percent growth.

Advancers slightly trailed losers, 39 to 44, while 53 issues closed unchanged in yesterday's lean trading with a value turnover of P617.62 million.

Among the most active stocks were tech issues iVantage Corp., Philweb, Music Corp. which all rose following the Nasdaq movement. iVantage ended eight centavos higher to P2.10; PhilWeb closed half a centavo more to P0.165; while Music gained 10 centavos to P5.10.

The Ayala companies -- Ayala Land and Ayala Corp. -- were also actively traded. Riding on its shift into "new economy" ventures, ALI moved up 20 centavos to P4.90 while AC was unchanged at P6.80.

PLDT rose P15 to P765 following an increase in its New York stocks.