Local stocks go on roller coaster ride before PSEi regains 7,000

AFP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Local stocks went on a roller coaster ride on Thursday amid volatile global markets, swinging from big gains to losses and back to a big gain at close, shoring up the index back to the 7,000 mark.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index added 63.07 points or 0.91 percent to close at 7,029.28.

Most counters ended higher, except for the mining/oil counter, which ended slightly lower.

Value turnover for the day amounted to P8.97 billion. Despite the main PSEi’s decline, market breadth was negative as there were only 59 advancers versus 127 decliners while 38 stocks were unchanged.

Jonathan Ravelas, chief strategist at Banco de Oro Unibank, said the breach of the 7,000 level would put the market at risk of heading towards the next support levels at 6,800 to 6,850.

“This caused investors to panic as only few were expecting yearend to be closer to 7,000 levels,” Ravelas said.

“Foreign selling pressure overpowered the bargain hunters. Global funds are still realigning their portfolio as most continue to weigh the impact of the sudden slump in oil prices and slide of the Russian currency,” said Astro del Castillo, managing director at First Grade Finance Inc. in Manila.

But Del Castillo said local investors should not panic. “Our local market is not in the naughty list. Local fundamentals will eventually reverse the downtrend,” he said.

The day’s gains were led by URC and Metrobank, which respectively rose by 2 percent and 1.5 percent while PLDT, DMCI and AC also contributed to the day’s gains.

On the other hand, the PSEi’s gains were tempered by the decline in shares of ALI, AGI, BDO and EDC.

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