Wall Street gains buoy local stocks

MANILA, Philippines — The local stock market sustained its winning ways on positive cues from Wall Street’s overnight performance.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index rose for the second straight session, adding 0.48 percent or 30.52 points, to end at 6,378.86.

Also closing in positive territory yesterday was the broader All Shares index which improved by 0.18 percent, or 6.81 points, to 3,705.34.

“Philippine shares climbed following the sentiment of US stocks, which surged on Wednesday. The S&P 500 reached a new all-time high, driven by strong performances from technology giants like Oracle and Nvidia, fueled by optimism around artificial intelligence,” Regina Capital’s Luis Limlingan said.

Aside from the positive cues from Wall Street’s overnight performance, Philstocks Financial Inc. analyst Japhet Tantiangco said that bargain hunting also continued, which in turn extended the local market’s gains.

However, Tantiangco said that trading was still anemic with net value turnover at P3.96 billion as many investors stayed on the sidelines amid lingering uncertainties primarily regarding the US’ foreign trade policies.

Foreigners were net sellers with net outflows at P163.58 million.

Financials and holding firms led the local counters, climbing by 1.14 percent and one percent, respectively.

Services and property, meanwhile, fell by 0.80 percent and 0.17 percent, respectively.

Market breadth was negative as decliners edged out advancers, 107 to 95, while 42 issues were unchanged.

DMCI Holdings posted the highest jump among index members at 3.99 percent, while JG Summit Holdings lost the most with 5.88 percent.

ICTSI was the session’s most actively traded company, dropping by 1.22 percent to P390.20 per share, followed by BDO which climbed by 3.58 percent to P147.60.