Index edges up on bargain hunting

The stock market managed to recover in the afternoon trade after trading mostly in the red earlier in the day on late bargain hunting.

However, value turnover remained low as investors stayed on the sidelines as they wait in anticipation for President Duterte’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).

Duterte will give his third SONA on Monday with an expected pitch for federalism as well as a reiteration of his administration’s Build Build Build infrastructure program.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose 11.74 points, or 0.15 percent, to finish at 7,399.61.

Similarly, the broader All Shares index gained 4.26 points, or 0.09 percent, to finish at 4,466.70.

Most sectoral indices were up led by the property, mining and oil, financials and indus- trial indices.

Despite managing to close in positive territory, total value turnover remained thin at P3.429 billion.

Advancing stocks also edged out decliners but only by a small margin, 96 to 93 while 51 issues were left unchanged.

Elsewhere in the region, Asian shares pushed higher on Friday, recovering from earlier losses as the yuan bounced back from a one-year low.

This after the yuan took a beating earlier in the day yesterday after the central bank set a weaker fixing for the currency for seventh straight session. This caused anxiety in Asian markets, some of which are sensitive to the sharp movements in the yuan.