PSE Index In Healthy Surge

After last week's doldrums in trade, The Philippine Stock Exchange index bounced back to life with a healthy surge with just one share posting a loss among the Top 20 most active stocks to close at 6,502.12 points, a gain of 122.95 points or 1.93 percent.

Photo Insert: The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index, May 16, 2022

Opening 80 points higher, the index propelled higher to 6,539.33 points before day traders pocketed their gains with the property sub-index posting the biggest advance of 3.16 percent as SM Prime and Ayala Land rose by 3.99 percent and 3.27 percent, respectively closing at P36.50, up by P1.40 and P28.40, up by 90 centavos with trades of P695 million and P690 million, the second and third actively-traded stocks.

Converge emerged most active with a value turnover of P838 million on disclosure of its higher income, closing at P27.80, up by 5 centavos.

Only Monde posted the lone loss among the Top 20 active stocks, as it closed 4 centavos lower to P14.32. Total trade was 30 percent above average at P8.05 billion with gainers ahead of losers 118 to 79 with 43 shares unchanged.

Market bellwether SM Investments towed the holding sub-index to a gain of 1.97 percent as it advanced by P19 to P808. The financials rose by 1.13 percent, industrials by 0.94 percent, services by 1.24 percent, and mining and oil by 0.78 percent.

Many of the blue chips were bid up at the start of trade with PLDT closing P120 higher to P1,950, Globe up by P80 to P2,280, Aboitiz Equity, up by 30 centavos to P47.30, Semirara Mining up by 60 centavos to P28.85, and DMCI up by 18 centavos to P8.28.

Rounding off the gainers were Aboitiz Power, up by 70 centavos to P29.20, GT Capital up by P9 to P491, Meralco up by 20 centavos to P330.40, BDO Unibank up by 80 centavos to P126, Bank of PI up by P1.60 to P90.60, and Security Bank up by P3.70 to P92.70.

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