The stock market rose Wednesday following a record-breaking close on Wall Street overnight.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index added 28.06 points, or 0.4 percent, to 7,846.99 on a value turnover of P8.1 billion. Losers, however, beat gainers, 105 to 87, with 51 issues unchanged.
Conglomerate JG Summit Holdings Inc. of industrialist John Gokongwei climbed 2.9 percent to P65.65, while SM Investments Corp. of the Sy Group gained 2.2 percent to P950.
Conglomerate Ayala Corp. gained 2.2 percent to P884, while property unit Ayala Land Inc. rose 2.1 percent to P48.
The rest of Asian markets mostly rose Wednesday after Wall Street’s rally that was fueled by strong earnings from US big-hitters, but investors held back from firing a full-on rally.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq scaled all-time highs while the Dow came close after a string of better-than-forecast results from the likes of Coca-Cola, Twitter and Lockheed Martin added to a raft of other recent reports that suggest the economy is in rude health.
Markets welcomed “a really great string of earnings reports, most of them outpacing expectations, as well as some pretty good commentary on future estimates from CEOs”, Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold Weeden, told Bloomberg News.
“There’s quite a bit of positivity carrying this to new highs.”
However, while Asian dealers were generally upbeat they were unable to capitalize on the Wall Street performance, with major indexes shifting in and out of positive territory through the day.
Shanghai finished up 0.1 percent, while Singapore put on 0.2 percent and Sydney jumped one percent as a drop in Australian inflation raised the chances of an interest rate cut by the country’s central bank. The reading sent the Australian dollar plunging more than one percent.
There were also positive performances in Wellington, Taipei, Mumbai and Bangkok.
However, Hong Kong fell 0.5 percent, while Tokyo finished 0.3 percent off with Seoul 0.9 percent lower.
While most equity markets were up, forex dealers were less risky, with the dollar up against most of its peers and higher-yielding units, though the greenback was weaker versus the Japanese yen, which is considered the go-to asset in times of uncertainty.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin travel to Beijing next week for another round of high-level talks aimed at resolving their painful tariffs war.
The White House issued a statement saying the latest negotiations “will cover trade issues including intellectual property, forced technology transfer, non-tariff barriers, agriculture, services, purchases and enforcement,” adding that Chinese officials will visit Washington on May 8.
Expectations the talks will eventually end with an agreement between the economic superpowers has helped fire a rally across world markets this year, with the initial row having been the catalyst for a sharp sell-off at the end of 2018. With AFP