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Friday, March 29, 2024

Stocks up; Jollibee, URC advance

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The stock market climbed for the third straight day Thursday, boosted by buying on consumer-related stocks that are expected to benefit from government’s catch-up plan on infrastructure spending.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index rose 38.80 points, or 0.5 percent, to 7,836.55 on a value turnover of P6.6 billion. Gainers beat losers, 97 to 80, with 53 issues unchanged. 

The government plans to increase its expenditures in the months ahead to achieve an economic growth of more than 6 percent this year, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has said. The plan to ramp up spending is expected to boost consumer spending  in the next three quarters.

Jollibee Foods Corp., the biggest fast-food chain, gained 3.3 percent to P282, while Universal Robina Corp., the largest snack food maker, added 2.5 percent to P163.

First Gen Corp. of the Lopez Group advanced 5.3 percent to P22.95 after unit FGen LNG Corp. broke ground on the $1-billion liquefied natural gas terminal project in Batangas City and announced a plan to build additional gas power plants with a combined capacity of 1,200 megawatts.

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Megaworld Corp., the biggest lessor of office spaces, climbed 5.3 percent to P5.92.

The rest of Asian markets, meanwhile, largely fell Thursday as Beijing ratcheted up its rhetoric against Washington, fanning investor anxiety over the US-China trade war and a potential global economic slowdown.

With no date set for tariff talks to resume in the US-China trade war, and Beijing accusing Washington of “naked economic terrorism” on Thursday in its handling of the dispute, investors appeared resigned to the prospect of the spat extending into the summer.

“We are against the trade war, but we are not afraid of it,” Chinese vice foreign minister Zhang Hanhui said at a press briefing.

“This premeditated instigation  of a trade conflict is naked economic terrorism, economic chauvinism, and economic bullying,” Zhang added.

Tokyo and Shanghai ended 0.3 percent lower while Hong Kong dropped 0.4 percent. Singapore lost 0.8 percent, while Sydney fell 0.7 percent. But Seoul rose 0.8 percent.

A veiled threat by Beijing on Wednesday to cut critical exports of rare earths to the United States intensified concerns.

It was the latest salvo in a months-long row that has seen Washington and Beijing slap tit-for-tat tariffs on imports, with US President Donald Trump upping the ante in recent weeks by blacklisting Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

Any move by China, which produces 95 percent of the world’s rare earths, to restrict exports to the US would have a devastating impact on manufacturers of everything from smartphones to computers to lightbulbs.

In bond markets a push towards safe-haven purchases saw the yield, or rate of return, on 10-year US Treasury notes plummet to the lowest level since September 2017.

“With the skirmish on the cusp of escalating into a more extensive drawn-out attritional campaign, the fall in bond yields has accelerated, forcing global growth bastions of optimism such as stocks and oil to rethink their strategies,” said OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley. With AFP

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