PSE BUCKS EARLY LOSS; ENDS UP A BIT

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index today bucked early losses to post a fractional gain on the strength of the gains in the property and holding firms’ sectors.

Down by more than 100 points going into the last hour of trading with the financials posting a big decline, the property and holding firms surged ahead erasing the earlier red signals to bring up the PSE index to 6,476.24 points, up by 0.57 points.

Value turnover stood at P7.04 billion, with P5 billion of that coming in an hour before the close with 72 gainers, 117 losers and 51 issues unchanged.

The gain in the PSE Index after a scary opening with all counters in negative territory is seen as a catalyst for next week’s stock market run with all eyes focused on the IPO listing of Merry Mart.

SM Prime Holdings’ trading performance mirrored that of the market, opening 20 centavos lower at P32.80 and dropping to as low as P31.50 before nosing up to its high of P33.25, its closing price, an increase of 25 centavos.

The holding firm of the Sy Family was the day’s most active stock with total trade of P787.95 million.

BPI, BDO Unibank and Metrobank suffered losses while Security Bank eked out a gain. BPI lost P2.20 to close at P73.50 while BDO and Metrobank respectively declined by 50 centavos and P1. Security Bank was up by a peso.

Emperador was the second most attractive stock with P432.8 million as investors cashed in their gains pushing share prices lower by three centavos to P8.32.