Share prices are expected to move sideways on thin volume during the last trading week of the year as investors will likely stay on the sidelines due to uncertainties in the global market.
Analysts said investors will likely preserve their gains given the series of global uncertainties, such as threats of a US government shutdown, the trade war between the US and China and rising global interest rates led by the US.
BDO Unibank Inc. chief investment strategist Jonathan Ravelas, however, believes the market’s recent rally still had some steam to carry the index toward the 7,800 levels in the near-term.
But if the index dips below the 7,300, Ravelas said this would favor the bears to play the 6,900/7,000 levels.
The financial markets will be closed on Monday and Tuesday in observance of the Christmas season.
“With a long weekend coming up, expect the PSEi to respond to the moves of the US market when our market opens once again on Wednesday. Barring any jarring event abroad, we might see a resumption of the light trading this week especially with the shortened trading schedule and another long weekend next next week,” Papa Securities trader Gabriel Jose Perez said.
Perez expects the trading range to be between the recent lows and highs of 7,350 and 7,700.
The the bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange last week declined 0.6 percent to close a little below the 7,500-point level, while the broader All Shares Index slipped 0.1 percent to 4,501.
Most counters ended in the red led by mining and oil (-3.11 percent), financials (-1.6 percent), holding firms (-0.8 percent) and property (-0.6 percent.) The services index, meanwhile, climbed 1.4 percent while the industrial index rose 0.4 percent.
Foreign investors were net sellers for the week by P2.5 billion, while the average daily value traded stood at P6.6 billion, down from the previous week’s average of P8.8 billion.
Weekly top gainers were Filinvest Development Corp., which surged 19.3 percent to P11.92; Macroasia Corp., which advanced 13.5 percent to P16.46; and PAL Holdings which climbed 9.5 percent to P8.30.
Weekly top price losers were Semirara Mining and Power Corp., which declined 6.2 percent to P22.50; Globe Telecom, which fell 5.8 percent to P1,900; and Petron Corp., which lost 5 percent to P7.77.
Wall Street, meanwhile, ended its worst week in a decade with more bruising losses Friday, and with the tech-rich Nasdaq entering a bear market amid worries about trade wars and a possible US government shutdown.
The Nasdaq and Dow suffered their worst weeks since the start of the global financial crisis as the US-China trade dispute returning to the forefront, and amid continued concerns about the Federal Reserve’s plans for interest rate increases.
“It has been a remarkably terrible trading week for financial markets amid concerns over rising US interest rates, decelerating global growth, Brexit uncertainty and chaos in Washington,” said Lukman Otunuga, a research analyst at FXTM. With AFP
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the week with a loss of nearly seven percent, after losing 1.8 percent or more than 400 points Friday, to close at 22,445.37. With AFP
