Bargain Hunting Lifts Stocks To Welcome "Ghost Month" A Level Up

By The Financial District
3 hours ago
2 min read

Bargain hunting in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) lifted stocks after an initial wave of selling at the opening, with the index closing at its highest level of the day—6,306.13 points, up by 53.40 points or 0.85 percent.

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index, August 1 , 2025

Except for Mining and Oil, which slipped by 0.40 percent, all other sub-indices rose.

Conglomerates posted a hefty gain of 1.38 percent, with market bellwether SM Investments closing at its peak price of ₱834—a gain of ₱18 or 2.2 percent—after initially falling to ₱815 during the first volley of trades.

Financials rose by 0.10 percent, Industrials advanced by 1.12 percent, Services gained 0.87 percent, and Property increased by 0.40 percent.

Gaming stock DigiPlus once again emerged as the most active, accounting for ₱1.75 billion—or a third of total trades. It recovered from its Thursday loss, rising by 8.33 percent to ₱27.30, a gain of ₱2.10.

Marcventures Holdings was the top gainer, jumping 40 percent to ₱0.70—an increase of ₱0.20—on trades worth ₱13.03 million. Total value turnover amounted to ₱5.58 billion, of which foreign trades comprised ₱4.1 billion.

Foreign buying totaled ₱2.080 billion, while foreign selling reached ₱2.135 billion, resulting in net foreign selling of ₱54 million.

There were 99 gainers, 91 losers, and 50 unchanged issues. Among the unchanged were ACEN Corp., Ginebra, PSE, Vitarich, AREIT RT, ABS-CBN, PLDT, Ferronickel, and STI Holdings.

Among the gainers were BDO Unibank, SM Prime, Ayala Land, Bank of the Philippine Islands, ICTSI, JG Summit, Lodestar, Alternergy, Manila Water, Emperador, Jollibee Foods, Globe Telecom, DITO CME, SSI Group, Apex Mining, OceanaGold, Bloomberry, Monde Nissin, GT Capital, Megawide, Citystate Savings, and Universal Robina.

Among the losers were Metrobank, Converge, PNB, AbaCore, San Miguel, First Gen, Meralco, Aboitiz Equity, Megaworld, Vista Land, Cebu Air, Puregold, Belle Corp., Atlas Mining, Nickel Asia, Philex Mining, and Haus Talk.