PSEi up amid recession fears

Recession fears, stemming from the inversion of the US Treasury yield curve, made worse by trade tension between US and China as well as Japan and South Korea, prompted cautious trading in Asian markets

The Philippine Stock Exchange index gained 100.12 points to rise 1.29 percent higher to 7,847.50 in mid-week trading, outperforming other Asian markets as investors deem the market less volatile amid recession fears. Likewise, the broader all shares index ended 0.89 percent higher at 4,748.81, while all sub-indices except for the mining and oil index booked gains. “Philippine shares were bought up this time after being aggressively oversold (on Tuesday) as investors viewed the local market in a less volatile state than the rest of the region,” head of sales for Regina Capital Luis Limlingan said in a daily market note. Recession fears, stemming from the inversion of the US Treasury yield curve, made worse by trade tension between US and China as well as Japan and South Korea, prompted cautious trading in Asian markets on Wednesday.

China’s Shanghai Composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index were down 0.29 percent and 0.15 percent, respectively. Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average 225 inched up 0.1 percent.

Here, the holding firms index recorded the highest gain of 2.06 percent, followed by the property index which rose 1.38 percent. The mining and oil index, on the other hand, dropped 0.15 percent. Turnover value stood at P7.27 billion, normalizing from the P12.7-billion trading volume during Tuesday’s sell-off. Foreign investors left a P552 million net-selling footprint.

“We saw some minor gains in blue-chips that were sold off heavily yesterday. This allowed the main index to end higher today. Investors continue to focus on second-liners and speculative issues with NOW (Corp.) being the most traded stock for the day,” head of research for AAA Equities Christopher Mangun said.