June inflation pushes bourse to 8,100 level
Credit to Author: ANGELICA BALLESTEROS, TMT| Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:15:07 +0000
THE stock market broke into the 8,100 territory on Friday — a fresh five-month high — as investors cheered news that the rate of the increase in the prices of goods and services in June eased to a nearly two-year low.
The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index rose by 0.66 percent or 53.02 points to close at 8,117.94 — the highest since February 1’s 8,144.16 — while the broader All Shares rose by 0.28 percent or 13.69 points to end at 4,945.68.
“Investors took the latest inflation reading as [a] sign to buy into the market,” Regina Capital Development Corp. head of sales Luis Limlingan said.
P2P Trade Online sales associate Gabriel Jose Perez agreed, saying market players were happy about last month’s inflation figure.
Consumer prices for June decelerated to 2.7 percent from 3.2 percent in May on the back of the continued drop in rice prices, supported by the implementation of Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Liberalization Act, which levied duties on rice imports, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority, which announced the newest inflation data on Friday.
The latest figure is the lowest since August 2017’s 2.6 percent.
“Let’s hope the positive momentum continues on to next week with the PSEi making another run for its resistance mark,” Perez said.
The local market tracked a global rally. In the US, the Dow Jones grew by 0.67 percent, the S&P 500 rose by 0.77 percent, and the Nasdaq increased by 0.75 percent.
Regional markets were mixed, with Tokyo adding 0.20 percent, Shanghai climbing 0.19 percent, and Seoul inching up 0.09 percent.
Hong Kong and Jakarta both dipped 0.07 percent, Singapore slipped 0.23 percent and Bangkok was down 0.02 percent.
In Manila, most sectoral indices finished higher, except for services and mining and oil, down 0.22 percent and 0.72 percent, respectively.
More than 759 million issues were traded valued at P5.49 billion.
Losers led winners, 116 to 80, while 53 issues were unchanged.
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