San Miguel, Jollibee emerge as stock favorites in October

MANILA, Philippines — Conglomerates San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) emerged as the favorite of foreign stock market investors for the month of October, based on the latest Market Call report.

SMC, a diversified conglomerate,  was the top foreign buy with P706 million followed by food giant JFC with P640.74 million. Sy-owned BDO Unibank came third, recording a foreign buy of P552.41 million while foreigner buyers took up P481.02 million worth of Ayala Land shares.

Completing the list was another Ayala-led company, Globe Telecom with a foreign buy of P374.34 million.

Total buy value for the month  reached P2.7 billion.

On the other hand, the top five most sold stocks were  ICTSI which recorded a net sale of P834.5 million and Ayala Corp. which lost P462.21 million. 

Completing the list are telco giant PLDT, which recorded P436.47 million in foreign selling, Semirara Mining & Power Corp. with P269.88 million and Puregold with P216.07 million.

All five sectors of the PSEi, meanwhile, registered gains from the previous month’s figures.

The financial sector led the sectoral gains with an 8.3 percent month-on-month uptick, taking the cue from BPI’s early report of a huge 78.5 percent growth in third quarter earnings.

On the other hand,  only the mining and oil sector recorded a 6.2 percent month-on-month loss, “probably associated with drop in oil prices in the international market due to the decline in coal prices as China plans to raise its output.”

According to the Market Call,  investors delivered a bullish October for the Philippine stock market with the PSEi recording the third highest gain in share prices during the period as it peaked by 7.2 percent month-on-month.

This was a marked improvement from a 12.8 percent dip a month ago.

The PSEi also recorded a big jump as investors actively hunted for bargains in the

Philippine market after the US Fed expectedly pursued its aggressive rate policy hikes amid the fall in commodity prices, it  said.

Favorable external and domestic data released in early November have reversed investors’ erstwhile risk-aversion, making equities somewhat attractive once again, said The Market Call, a joint report of the First Metro Investment Corp. and the University of Asia & the Pacific.