PSE Shakes Off Early Cobwebs, Rises To New Milestone

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index raced up to a new milestone as investors shook off negative sentiments early in trade to push it up to 6,724.21 points, up 45.39 points or 0.68 percent.

Photo Insert: The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Index, August 24, 2021

With the exception of the industrial sub-sector which lost 0.22 percent, all counters were up with the financials posting the lowest at 0.03 percent. The services sector went up by 2.24 percent, mining and oil by 0.33 percent, holding firms, 0.48 percent, and property by 0.79 percent.

Value turnover, however, at P1.85 billion was at a dismal low indicating the lack of commitment from among investors due to the prevailing uncertainty on the easily transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 that has already wreaked havoc on the economy to keel over to a negative economic growth last year. Also, another P270 billion in lost business has been announced with the latest two-week hard lockdown in NCR Plus.

Telcos Globe and PLDT went to a one-two finish among the most active stocks as they posted hefty gains with the former soaring 7.89 percent to P2,460, up by P180 with trades of P489 million and the latter by 6.01 percent to P1,323, up by P75 on trades of P206 million. Converge, however, went down by 85 centavos to P29.15.

Market bellwether SM Investments lost P3 to P984, while power firms First GEn and Aboitiz Power had identical gains of 25 centavos closing at P29.25 and P25,20 respectively.

Metro Pacific rose by 4 centavos to P3,92, while Ayala Land advanced by 10 centavos to P33.80 and SM Prime by 45 centavos to P33.90.

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