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Friday, March 29, 2024

Stocks climb on bargain-hunting

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The stock market rose Tuesday on bargain-hunting following another record close on Wall Street overnight.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index gained 31.20 points, or 0.4 percent, to 7,912.14 on a value turnover of P6.2 billion. Losers, however, beat gainers, 100 to 88, with 50 issues unchanged.

LT Group Inc., the holding company of tycoon Lucio Tan, advanced 6.7 percent to P12.42, while Bank of the Philippine Islands, the third-biggest lender in terms of assets, climbed 1.6 percent to P94.

BDO Unibank Inc., the largest bank, rose 1.6 percent to P157.40, while DMCI Holdings Inc. of the Consunji Group added 1.5 percent to P7.62.

The rest of Asian markets mostly rose Tuesday as investors bet on China and the US reaching a mini trade deal despite a report saying Beijing was concerned about the chances of an agreement.

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Hong Kong extended Monday’s rally with another surge but continuing protests in parts of the city—particularly a violent standoff at a university—remained a source of worry.

Regional traders were given another strong lead from Wall Street, where all three main indexes ended at new records on hopes for a good holiday shopping season with the key Black Friday sales day coming next week.

World equities have broadly been on the rise in recent weeks on optimism that the world’s top two economies will eventually hammer out a mini trade deal as part of a wider agreement.

However, there have been bumps in the road and the latest came Monday when CNBC reported that China was pessimistic about the chances of a pact because Donald Trump is not in favor of rolling back tariffs.

Trump last week denied claims by Beijing that the two sides had put in place a plan to remove levies as the talks' progress.

The report again highlighted the fragile nature of the negotiations.

“Investors have little option but to keep pace with the rapid shifts on the US-China phase-one deal, attempting to make sense of the many comments—official and from press ‘sources’—on whether a rollback was now genuinely on the table,” said Stephen Innes at AxiTrader. “Ultimately they remain hostage to these developments.”  

However, he said the broad gains on Tuesday meant “it looks like (investors) are starting to take trade headlines with a barrel of salt.”  

In early trade, regional markets swung in and out of positive territory.

Shanghai jumped 0.9 percent, Sydney piled on 0.7 percent and Taipei rallied 0.5 percent, while Wellington was up 0.2 percent. Jakarta and Mumbai also enjoyed gains.

But Tokyo ended 0.5 percent lower, Singapore lost 0.6 percent and Seoul shed 0.3 percent, while Bangkok was slightly lower.

National Australia Bank’s Rodrigo Catril said he was still betting on an agreement being reached.

“The negotiations remain ongoing (and) a phase-one deal looks more likely than not, but as usual the devil will be in the detail,” he said in a commentary. “The more tariff rollbacks we get, the better for market sentiment and global growth outlook.”

A decision by Washington to delay by another 90 days a ban of US firms from doing business with China’s Huawei provided support. With AFP

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