Bargain hunting snaps week-long PSEi fall

The stock market recovered yesterday on bargain hunting, boosting the main composite index by 44.47 points, or 0.53 percent, to settle at 8,404.69. The broader All Shares index, however, lost 22.15 points, or 0.44 percent, to finish at 5,055.87. Two indexes, the services and the mining and oil, closed in negative territory with the latter posting the biggest de- cline of 1.74 percent.

The rest of the counters closed in positive territory.

Market turnover amounted to P8.63 billion. Decliners outnumbered gainers, 113 to 100 while 48 issues were left unchanged.

Commenting on yesterday’s session, Luis Limlingan of Regina Capital said Philippine markets still took a precautionary stance with selective bargain hunting following reports of the sudden resignation of US economic adviser Gary Cohn.

The resignation of Cohn also sent global stocks and the dollar reeling.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.65 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei retreated 0.77 percent.

Australian stocks fell one percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.1 percent and China’s blue-chip CSI300 index lost 0.4 percent.

In currency markets, the dollar fell as much as 0.6 percent to 105.45 yen, near its 16-month low of 105.24 touched on Friday.