Index may climb this week

MANILA, Philippines — The stock market may perform better this week after some positive developments last week, according to analysts.

How the world is solving the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 outbreak will still be  among  the top  concerns of market investors even as corporate earnings may also affect trading.

“Our outlook for the week will be somehow positive, but for selected industries most especially those which continue to operate despite COVID-19.  Corporate earnings season might also affect trading for this week, but not as much since the numbers do not reflect the effects of the enhanced community quarantine,” said Piper Chaucer Tan of Philstocks Financials.

“Operations from January to mid- March are still somehow unaffected by the contagion that is why some of the companies are still posting net income despite the outbreak,” he said.

For this week, analysts said the market would also wait for new developments in the US markets and how they would react to President Trump’s new threats to impose new tariffs on China in retaliation for the coronavirus.

“These tariff issues are back and as we know, tariffs affect market in a negative way. I think this was also the reason why we think investors will be on a wait and see mode as depicted in the movement of the Philippine Stock Exchange index in the past two weeks. The market range consolidated from 5,440 support and 6,000 resistance,” Tan said.

He expects the week to be within the range with some profit taking at around 6,000 resistance level.