Share prices ended the week in the green, closing above the 6,300 level on last-minute bargain hunting.
The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) closed at 6,315.93, up 24.08 points, or 0.38 percent. The broader all-shares index finished at 3,751.23, an increase of 8.20 points, or 0.22 percent.
The peso depreciated Friday, closing at 57.056 to the US dollar, down from 56.945 on Thursday.
“Last-minute bargain hunting brought the local bourse to a positive close,” said Japhet Tantiangco, research head at Philstocks Financial Inc. “For most of the day, the market was down as hopes of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve were tempered by the US’s higher-than-expected July producer price inflation.”
Among the sectors, only the mining and oil index saw a decline, dropping 0.63 percent. The industrial index led the sectors, rising 1.01 percent.
Trading activity was strong, with value turnover reaching P9.66 billion, higher than the year-to-date average of P5.95 billion.
Bloomberry Resorts Corp. was the day’s top gainer, increasing 9.09 percent to P3.60. San Miguel Corp. was at the bottom, declining 7.11 percent to P55.55.
Asian stocks were mostly up Friday after better-than-expected Japanese growth, although weak Chinese data hit the Hang Seng and oil slipped back ahead of a US-Russia summit on Ukraine.
Wall Street finished little changed on Thursday as wholesale inflation data tempered optimism about the US Federal Reserve cutting interest rates. US Treasuries edged up.
A quarter-point cut is still expected but a larger half-point rate cut is likely “off the table”, said Jack Ablin of Cresset Capital Management.
Japan’s economy grew 0.3 percent in the three months to June, while output for the previous period was revised upwards, averting a recession for the world’s number four economy.
The expansion came despite tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on Japanese imports, including on cars — an industry accounting for eight percent of Japanese jobs.
Tokyo’s Nikkei, which hit new records this week, was up 1.7 percent on Friday while Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney also moved higher.
In Europe, London, Paris and Frankfurt all saw early gains.
But Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell for the second day after Chinese retail sales and industrial production grew more slowly than expected last month.
A long-term crisis in China’s real estate sector and high youth unemployment have been weighing on consumer sentiment for several years.
The situation has worsened with the heightened turmoil sparked by Trump’s trade war, with the two sides recently extending a truce.
Oil prices dipped, reversing gains on Thursday ahead of Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the Ukraine war.
“I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me,” Trump said.
Oil traders are worried “that if the meeting doesn’t go well, we’ll see stronger sanctions on Russian oil thereby depriving the world of or making it… difficult for this oil to get to the market”, said Stephen Schork of the Schork Group. With AFP
