PSE Index Down

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index today declined by 38.03 points or 0.55 percent to 6,838.76 points, unable to sustain a mini-rally towards the 7,000-point milestone level with the lack of catalysts to power the index further.

Photo Insert: The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index, February 13, 2023

Holding firms lost 1.22 percent as market bellwether SM Investments closed P5 lower to P895, property went down by 0.52 percent and services declined by 0.40 percent to overwhelm the small gains in financials, up by 0.05 percent, industrials by 0.20 percent and mining and oil by 0.43 percent.

BDO Unibank emerged as the most active with trades of P661 million as it went up by 90 centavos to P126.40, followed by Metro Pacific with trades of P457 million as it closed higher by 18 centavos or 4.27 percent to P4.40 with news of the entry of Mitsui Corp in its infra business.

GT Capital was the third most active with P381 million as it closed 3.77 percent higher to P550, up by P20.

Aboitiz Power, which, like MPI got new investments from the Japan trip of President Marcos, Jr., went up by 1.99 percent to P38.50, a gain of 75 centavos. The other gainers included Metrobank, up 5 centavos to P61.40, SM Prime, up 10 centavos to P37.70, Wilcon Depot up 35 centavos to P33, Jollibee Foods up a peso to P239.80, Converge up 2 centavos to P16.88, and Monde up 16 centavos to P12.42.

Value turnover was above average at P6.59 billion with 101 gainers, 99 losers and 39 shares unchanged.

Many of the second-liners were up resulting in the number of gainers ahead of losers. Oriental Peninsula topped the gainers column with a hefty 30.12 percent rise as it went up by 25 centavos to P1.08 with trades of P 51 million followed by Xurpas which rose by P0.035 to P0.345, a gain of 11.29 percent.

Market analysts see the market to be volatile this week with the Thursday announcement of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for its new rate setting to battle inflation, which went up. The BSP is seen to at least hike rates by 25 basis points with the possibility of a 50 basis point rise being announced.

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