The Philippine stock market is expected to move sideways this week, with a downward bias ahead of the US presidential election and release of October inflation in the Philippines.
“Global marts are expected to hyper-fixate on Western events next week, as guesswork on the US elections conclude just in time for the Fed to deliver what is expected to be its penultimate rate cut for the year,” online brokerage firm 2TradeAsiacom. said.
It noted that trade, policy and outlook would be recalibrated post-November, which could lead to fund movement over the next few weeks.
“Expect funds to move into defensive positions as the next few weeks are rife with events that markets have to parse and digest, regardless of how supportive or adverse new data are to fundamentals,” 2TradeAsia.com said.
Meanwhile, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas earlier said inflation likely picked up in October 2024, within a range of 2 percent to 2.8 percent, from a 52-month low of 1.9 percent in September.
The BSP cited higher prices of food commodities, increased prices of domestic petroleum products and the peso depreciation as the primary sources of upward price pressures for the month.
Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist Michael Ricafort said the underlying upward trend in the past four months remains as long as the benchmark index stays above the immediate support of 6,710 to 6,880 levels.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 2.34 percent last week to close at 7,142.96, while the broader all-shares index went down by 1.5 percent to 3,957.21.
Average daily turnover reached P5.3 billion, higher than the previous week’s average of P4.2 billion.
Foreign selling accelerated to P2.8 billion, from previous week’s P73.1 million.
