Stock market poised to climb higher

Share prices are expected to continue to trade on positive territory this week with investors now focusing on the recovery story of the domestic economy and on former vice president Joe Biden’s ascendancy to the US presidency.

Analysts said investors were looking at the improving economic numbers as the number of COVID-19 cases in the country continue to decline, which could lead to further easing of quarantine restrictions.

Listed companies have started reporting positive third-quarter results against the second quarter of the year. The third-quarter profits, however, are still below a year ago levels.

The pronouncements from newly-appointed vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. that COVID-19 vaccine rollout could start sometime by May next year are also positive development for the country.

BDO Unibank Inc. chief investment strategist Jonathan Ravelas said the market may trade between the 6,300-6,700-point levels in the near-term. He pegged the market’s next resistance at 6,900.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index last week jumped 5.7 percent to 6,685.69. The market traded on the positive territory for the entire week amid the expected victory of Biden in the US presidential election.

AP Securities stockbroker Jaycob Yedra said in a recent press briefing the domestic market rallied on on expectations that a Joe Biden victory will be positive for developing countries like the Philippines.

“Prevailing view is that a Biden victory would be good for most developing countries/emerging markets and will offer opportunities that have not yet been priced in,” Yedra said.

“This is because emerging markets is a proxy for global trade growth and the outlook is that Biden winning means less US protectionist stance and therefore will be good for global growth. (The) Philippines along with the other emerging markets are expected to rally,” he added.

All sectors posted week-on-week gains led by holding firms (+7.1 percent), services (+5.05 percent), and mining and oil (+4.97 percent).

The average daily value slipped to P8.5 billion, while foreign investors turned net sellers for the week at an average of P120 million compared with the average net buying of P390 million in the previous week.

World markets, meanwhile, lost momentum Friday after four straight days of gains on Wall Street, as vote counting across US battleground states showed Democrat Joe Biden poised for victory.

US stocks from Monday to Thursday posted the best four-day streak since April, and Friday featured positive economic data for traders to peruse as unemployment dropped a full point to 6.9 percent in October, a bigger-than-expected fall.

The US economy regained 638,000 jobs last month, far more than analysts had been expecting, the Labor Department data showed, despite rising coronavirus cases and Congress’s failure to pass another spending package to aid the economy’s recovery.

But the Dow Jones index closed 0.2 percent lower, while the Nasdaq was flat for the day as was the S&P 500. But despite the lackluster Friday, this week was the best since April with a gain of 7.3 percent for the S&P.

In London, the FTSE 100 was almost unchanged but still added six percent for the blue chip index’s best week since June, a similar pattern to other major European bourses. With AFP