Stocks bounce back on late buying spree

The local stock market finally ended its six-day losing streak yesterday, with the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index finally regaining strength.

The PSEi, — a barometer of investor confidence — closed at 7,517.37, up 68.17 points or 0.91 percent while the broader All Shares index gained 25.15 points or 0.54 percent to end at 4,602.31.

The rest of the counters all recovered as well with the mining and oil and property index booking the most gains.

Total value turnover reached P6.066 billion while market breadth was negative, 123 to 72. Forty-five issues, meanwhile, were left unchanged.

Commenting on yesterday’s session, Justino Calaycay of Philstocks said the bears took to the backseat leaving the “arena” to the bulls.

“The latter couldn’t make much of it however attracting just a little over P2.5 billion in trades during the morning session which had the index up by 19.24 points to 7,468.44. Negative breadth remained, and was wide at -44 (gainers, 70; losers, 114)

Enough buying entered the picture in afternoon trades, but were rather tepid staying at the same pace as in early trading and keeping a lid on gains to around 20-or-so points -- until the run-off stage which saw the number grow to +68.17 points, pushing the benchmark above the 7,500 line. The negative breadth widened even to -51,” Calaycay said.

Traders said the momentum may be sustained today and may again trigger a resumption of the market’s upward trend.