The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Philippine Stock Exchange’s (PSE) benchmark index (PSEi) continued its recovery after closing the week at 7,098.81, from the previous day’s 7,022.09 finish, marking the fourth straight day that the index closed higher following the sharp drop of the market on Monday, when the PSEi followed the global decline of market prices.
“The rebound of the market is a welcome relief amidst the uncertainties in the global markets. The second quarter growth numbers highlight the resilience of the economy despite challenges abroad and we hope that investors continue to look at the Philippines as a viable investment,” PSE chairman Jose T. Pardo said.
The index closed the trading week near the 7,100 territory, as investors’ euphoria over the robust second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) extended and sentiment boosted from a surge in Wall Street.
The government on Wednesday reported that significant improvement in government spending fuelled the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) which increased 5.6 percent in April to June from previous quarter’s 5 percent.
Brokerage firm 2TradeAsia.com said the local bourse also got another boost from a surge in Wall Street, especially with signs the United States economy grew better-than-expected.
The market’s gain was led by the rally of mining and oil counter which jumped by 5.16 percent. Only the services sector was in the red.
Volume of transactions reached 1.47 billion shares on Friday valued at P11.26 billion.
Advancers outnumbered decliners, 129 to 46, while 40 issues were unchanged.
Meanwhile, the PSE reiterated that there were no issues encountered today in the trading terminals. The Exchange halted trading on Monday and Tuesday as it observed data transmission issues in the front end termi-nals used by the brokers.
“The PSE has put in place fixes to the technical issues it encountered and we have seen trading operating normally.
Rest assured, the Ex-change continues to moni-tor the situation,” PSE Chief Operating Officer Roel A. Refran said.
With the market dis-ruptions early in the week, the Securities and Exchange Commission has asked infor-mation from the PSE on the technical incidents.
“We observe reporting procedures when these types of issues arise, including pro-viding them incident reports as soon as possible. We have been in constant communi-cation with the SEC and will provide them their informa-tion requests within the set timelines,” Refran added.
The PSE also clarified that the recent resignation of its Chief Technology Of-ficer Emmanuel Caintic was not connected to the trad-ing halt caused by technical issues.
“Mr. Emmanuel Caintic’s resignation came at an inop-portune time and we want to clarify that his resignation was in no way related to the events in the past days per-taining to the trading halt. We would have wanted for him to continue to help us even in other capacities, but we also have to respect his decision,” Refran said.