Bull run still on; index marks 19th record close

The bourse index surged to a fresh all-time high last Friday, its 19th record for this year, on the back of good earnings reports and tracking the uptrend in the United States market.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) surged 42.29 points to 7,861.33 from the previous day’s 7,819.04 close.

”Good earnings reports support further rise towards the 8,000 levels,” BDO Unibank chief market strategist Jonathan Ravelas said.

In a market report, stock brokerage DA Market Securities said the US stocks closed modestly higher Thursday in light trading as investors held back on big bets ahead of Friday’s jobs report.

It said the jobs report is expected to be a big factor in influencing the timing of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike.

Counters were mixed, with mining and oil and services in negative territory.

The sub-indices of other counters surged slightly.

Volume of transactions reached 5.95 billion shares valued at P9.27 billion. Advancers won over decliners, 94 to 85, while 50 issues were unchanged.

Gains were led by Paxys Inc., Philippine Racing Club Inc., Manila Mining Corp., Travellers International Hotel Group Inc. and SSI Group Inc.

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), meanwhile, is gearing up for the first market rehearsal scheduled later this month for its new trading system, PSEtrade XTS, provided by NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations).

The PSEtrade XTS will be replacing the current trading engine of PSE in May of this year.

To ensure that everyone will be ready to participate in the testing, the bourse started its regular broker training on the new terminal since November last year.

To date, only a fourth of the total number of trading participants have yet to finish their training.

The PSE also started its Broker System Certification last January 6. The Exchange is working with the users of the trading system towards attaining a 100 percent certification rate.

Another initiative of the Exchange in preparation for the use of PSEtrade XTS is the weekly update session for brokers with their own trading execution platforms.

The session provides brokers with the avenue to ask their questions and to report on their development milestones. PNA