Share prices are expected to test the 7,800-point level over the near term ahead of the release of second-quarter earnings results.
Analysts said investors were now positioning ahead of the earnings results, which would also provide the outlook for the second half of the year.
Among the companies scheduled to release their results this week are Manila Electric Co., Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc., Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Eagle Cement Corp.
Papa Securities trader Gio Perez said the market upward momentum was being pushed by foreign buying in the past trading days.
“The next resistance to look forward to would be 7,800, the area of the PSEi’s high last June,” Perez said.
The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange Index rose for the third straight week, gaining 4.1 percent to close at 7,701 last week, stirring speculation that Asia’s worst-performing stocks might have bottomed.
The broader All Shares Index climbed 3.3 percent to 4,615.
All major sub-indices ended in green led by holding firms (5.31 percent), financials (3.78 percent), property (3.64 percent), industrial (2.66 percent), services (2.49 percent) and mining and oil (0.78 percent).
BDO Unibank Inc. chief investment strategist Jonathan Ravelas said investors were generally pleased with President Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncements during his recent State-of-the-Nation address where he pushed the passage of the second package of tax reform program by yearend.
The second tax reform package includes the reduction of corporate income tax and rationalization of fiscal incentives.
Foreign investors were net buyers by P1.4 billion, while average daily value traded improved to P5.8 billion from last week’s average of P3.8 billion.
Weekly top price gainers were Bloomberry Resorts Corp., which jumped 13.1 percent to P10.57; Melco Resorts and Entertainment (Philippines) Corp., which rose 11.6 percent to P6.70; and ABS-CBN Corp., which advanced 10.4 percent to P24.30.
Weekly top price losers, meanwhile, were Del Monte Pacific Ltd., which declined 3.7 percent to P7.70; Manila Water Co. Inc, which fell 3.6 percent to P26.50; and Global Ferronickel Holdings Inc., which dropped 3.4 percent to P2.09.
Wall Street stocks, meanwhile, finished decisively lower on Friday after a blowout second-quarter US growth report on worries the economy has peaked.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index suffered the most of the major indices, shedding 1.5 percent to close the week at 7,737.42.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.3 percent to end at 25,451.06, while the broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.7 percent to 2,818.82.
Friday’s losses also were prompted by a largely disappointing round of earnings, with Exxon Mobil, Intel and Twitter all falling significantly.
US growth expanded by an annual rate of 4.1 percent, matching analyst expectations, due in part to strong consumer spending, according to Commerce Department data.
The growth rate was the strongest it has been since the third quarter of 2014. With AFP