Index nearly touches 7,800-pt mark

MANILA, Philippines - A late afternoon rally pushed local stocks to a new  record high yesterday ahead of the Chinese New Year.

The benchmark PSE index (PSEi) gained 8.75 points or 0.11 percent to 7,793.40 to post its 12th all time high close for the year.

More than 1.72 billion shares worth P6.65 billion changed hands yesterday with advancers outpacing decliners,93 to 81 while 48 issues were unchanged.

Except for the holding firms sub-index, most of the counters edged higher with the property sector logging the biggest gain (0.79 percent) followed by services which rose 0.67 percent.  Mining and oil went up by 0.35 percent.

Last minute buying in select stocks catapulted the market to record levels.

Among the most actively traded stocks were PLDT, Ayala Land, Universal Robina, EDC and Megaworld.

Top gainers were IMI, Oriental Petroleum, Discovery World, ATN Holdings and Lorenzo Shipping while the biggest losers were Anglo Philippines, Forum Pacific, Cebu Property and Philippine Realty Corp.

Meanwhile, Asian equities were mixed as a break down in negotiations between Greece and its European creditors, an absence of lead from Wall Street, along with a mixed bag of corporate earnings across Asia, depressed trading sentiment. 

Greece rejected a bailout proposal by its euro zone partners on Monday, throwing up uncertainty over talks related to its debt.