PSEi rallies to 6,900 level

THE LOCAL stock barometer ended a three-day slump yesterday, returning to the 6,900 level on the back of a global stock market rebound.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) gained 51.17 points or 0.74 percent to close at 6,942.47, tracking upbeat Wall Street and regional markets.

Overnight, the closely watched Dow Jones industrial index racked up 390.3 points or 2.42 percent to close at 16,492.68.

At the local market, all counters were up, but the day's gains were led by the financial and mining/oil counters, which both rose more than 1 percent.

Value turnover improved to P7.61 billion from the previous day's P4.73 billion. There were 106 advancers, or nearly double the 54 decliners, while 35 stocks were unchanged.

The PSEi was led higher by Metrobank, SM Prime, Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Megaworld and Globe Telecom, which all advanced more than 2 percent, while Universal Robina Corp., Ayala Corp., LT Group, BDO Unibank and Robinsons Land Corp. also firmed up.

On the other hand, Ayala Land Inc. and SM Investments Corp. ended lower. Outside of the PSEi, Puregold declined by 2.76 percent on reports that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)

would appeal to the Supreme Court its P2.7billion tax dispute with the retailer. DNL also fell by 0.37 percent. “Risk assets rallied overnight with sharp bounce in US equities and commodity prices,” Citigroup said in a research note yesterday. However, it warned that the volatility in risk asset markets would likely remain high into next week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

With the turmoil in China, many investors have scaled back expectations of an increase in US interest rates during this month’s meeting of the Federal Reserve Board.