Pickup seen from Wall Street’s gains

THE stock market’s having settled at the 8,300 level last week could serve as a base for a rebound although continued declines are also likely, analysts said.

“[W]e need to see more volume before we see the market recover,” Eagle Equities, Inc. research head Christopher Mangun said as he forecast a new support level of 8,070 if further losses occur.

Regina Capital Development Corp. Managing Director Luis Limlingan said today’s trading could see a pickup due to Wall Street’s gains last Friday following an upbeat US jobs report and news of an historic US-North Korea summit in May.

“With most local economic data [due to be] reported for the month [already] out … attention again will be focused on corporate earnings being released,” Limlingan said.

Online brokerage firm 2TradeAsia.com, however, said caution could prevail ahead of the US Federal Reserve March 20-21 policy meeting given concerns about the pace of interest rate hikes.

2TradeAsia.com also said that the spotlight would remain on listed firms’ capital spending announcements. Blue chip firms such as Ayala Corp. and San Miguel Corp. are among those expected to announce their 2017 financial performance this week.

“Stay alert for liquidity risks in third-tier bets whose runup has been driven largely by speculative stories,” the online brokerage also said.

On Friday, The Philippine Stock Exchange index dipped 0.11 percent or 9.34 points to close at 8,372.51.

The wider All Shares dropped 0.25 percent or 12.69 points to end at 5,052.79.