PSE EKES OUT MARGINAL RISE

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) today managed to eke out a marginal rise after a late buying rally erased its early decline to end the day with a minimal 0.16 points or .002 percent gain to 6,685.85 points.

Net foreign selling early on accounted for the decline in the PSE index but as investors bought bargains, the sub sectors inched up with a higher-than- average value turnover of P8.019 billion.

Gainers outnumbered decliners 131-83 with 43 shares unchanged but all subsectors were up except for the holding firms in trade that saw foreign buying of P2.79 billion and foreign selling of P3.189 billion for net foreign selling of P394 million. 

Market bellwether SM Investments lost P20 to close at P990, while market darling MerryMart rose to P4.14, up 29 centavos. The financials rose 0.23 per cent with BDO Unibank up 65 centavos to P92.65; Metrobank, up 16 centavos to P41.90 and Security Bank up 10 centavos to P100.10.

Dito was the most active stock with trades of P455.9 million though it lost 23 centavos to P5.88 on the uncertainty of its telco assets, while SM Prime was second most active with value turnover of P373.6 million as it posted an increase of P1.10 to P35.85.

Globe Telecom and PLDT went up respectively by P32 and P18 to close at P2,100 and P1,398. Jollibee Foods added another P2.10 to close at P198.90 while PureGold declined by 95 centavos to P40.85.