Bourse closes higher on retained interest rates

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - The Philippine stock market closed today's session up by 0.09 percent following the local central bank's decision to maintain rates.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index ended at 7,877. 96, 6.86 points higher, despite the heavy selling that pulled down the index to as low as 7,849.20.

On the other hand, the broader all-share index eked out a gain of only 0.004 percent or 0.20 of a point to 4,546.40.

Trading volume reached 1.73 billion shares worth P7.45 billion ($166.29 million) with 97 stocks declining, 76 advancing, and 47 were unchanged.

Two of the six counters were down. These were the holding firms and the services sector.

"Sessions traded flat with a downward bias as participants weigh in the market's reaction to the greenback's volatility," online brokerage 2TradeAsia.com said in its daily stock market comment.

It added, however, that the Philippine central bank, Bangko Sental ng Pilipinas' (BSP) move to retain interest rates, have tempered the drop.

The Monetary Board, the policy-making body of the BSP, on Thursday kept the key benchmark interest rates unchanged at 4 percent for overnight borrowing and 6 percent for overnight lending on manageable inflation environment.

For the week, the index managed to make a new intra-day high 7, 889.25 and a weekly gain of 0.76 percent.

Stocks in the 30-company index closed mixed. Investors picked up shares of SM Prime Holdings, Inc. and BDO Unibank, Inc. but sold down shares of heavyweight Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.