MANILA — Philippines’ main stocks gauge gained for the second straight day Monday while consolidation resulted to the sideways close of the peso against the greenback.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) finished the week’s first trading day at 7,866.52 points, up 0.30 percent or 23.36 points.
Most of the other indices trailed the main index with the broader All Shares up 0.28 percent, or 12.98 points, to 4,705.01 points.
The sectors were led by the Property with a 1.33 percent uptick followed by the Mining and Oil, 1.10 percent; Industrial, 0.68 percent; and Financials, 0.41 percent.
On the other hand, Services and Holding Firms shed 0.36 percent and 0.15 percent, respectively.
Volume for the day hit 1.78 billion shares amounting to PHP4.9 billion.
Gainers led losers at 118 to 74 while 53 stocks did not move.
The peso finished the week’s first trading day at 50.54, its weakest after the 50.552 on September 12, 2006. It closed last Friday at 50.47.
A trader said the US currency remains strong in the region and, thus, cited as “exaggerated” the strong opening of the peso for the day, at 50.45 from the previous session’s 50.60.
”The US dollar is generally stronger in Asia that’s why the peso consolidated in the afternoon session,” the trader said.
The local currency traded between its opening level and 50.57, bringing the day’s average to 50.51.
Volume for the day amounted to USD395 million, more than half compared to the USD760.9 million Friday last week.
The trader pointed this low volume turn-out to investors’ preference for the US currency ahead of the release of the minutes of the June 2017 meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and the European Central Bank (ECB) as well as the jobs data from the US this week.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 50.30 and 50.60 Tuesday. Joann Villanueva/PNA-northboundasia.com