Opening salvo: PSEi rallies to 6,500

With inflation expected to cool off, investors turned optimistic and bought up shares, lifting the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) back to 6,500 territory on the first day of trading this year.

The benchmark PSEi climbed by 1.61 percent, or 104 points, to close at 6,554.04 on Tuesday while the wider All-Shares Index rose 1.21 percent, or 41.38 points, to settle at 3,465.97.

“The possibility that inflation rate would settle within the 2 percent to 4 percent target of the government in December lifted market sentiment,” said Claire Alviar, assistant manager for research and online engagement at Philstocks Financial Inc.

Inflation dropped to 4.1 percent in November from 4.9 percent the month before following the decline in food prices, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

For now, Alviar said that investors were also waiting for other economic data sets to be released this week, including S&P Global Philippines Manufacturing report and the labor force survey.

All the subsectors were in the green except for property and mining and oil indices, which fell by 0.68 percent and 1.14 percent, respectively. Holding firms index had the most gains with 3.56-percent uptick, followed by services index with 2.33-percent increase.About 379.8 million shares valued at P3.66 billion were traded. Winners led losers, 100 to 77, while 47 issues were unchanged.

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The most actively traded shares were those of SM Investments Corp., rising 1.15 percent to P882 each.

This was followed by SM Prime Holdings, down 1.82 percent to P32.30; BDO Unibank Inc., down 2.07 percent to P127.80; SP New Energy Corp., up 1.52 percent to P1.34; Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., up 3.61 percent to P53.14; and Ayala Land Inc., up 0.29 percent to P34.55.

Other active names were International Container Terminal Services Inc., up 3.73 percent to P256; Universal Robina Corp., up 4.91 percent to P124; GT Capital Holdings Inc., up 1.69 percent to P600; and Bank of the Philippine Islands, up 1.93 percent to P105.80. —Tyrone Jasper C. Piad INQ