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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Market rises; BDO, URC advance

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Stocks rose Monday amid thin trading, after China’s top trade negotiator Liu He said at the weekend that Beijing and Washington had made “substantial progress” towards wrapping up a partial trade deal announced earlier this month.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index, the 30-company benchmark, gained 5 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 7,891.13.  The bellwether was also up 5.7 percent since the start of the year.

The broader all-share index shed 1 point to settle at 4,753.75, on a value turnover of P3.35 billion.  Losers outnumbered gainers, 98 to 86, while 59 issues were unchanged.

Ten of the 20 most active stocks ended in the green, led by BDO Unibank Inc. which climbed 2.3 percent to P148.90 and Universal Robina Corp. which went up 2 percent to P159.40.

Meanwhile, Asian stocks were mixed Monday amid reports of progress on the US-China trade deal.  The deal offered China a temporary reprieve from tariffs planned for mid-October, while Beijing said it would hike purchases of US agricultural goods.

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But it did not roll back any of the duties already imposed on hundreds of billions of dollars in exports to the US, nor address another round of levies due in December.

Still, the upbeat comments provided a boost to the yuan, which rose 0.2 percent against the dollar.

Brett Ewing, chief market strategist at First Franklin Financial Services, told Bloomberg TV: “It would be significant if they can get a phase one deal signed before Thanksgiving — the probability of that is probably a little bit over 60 percent right now. This is a very important issue, and I think it could remove a lot of uncertainty.”

In early trade, Hong Kong was up 0.2 percent and Tokyo went into the break 0.3 percent higher with Singapore, Seoul, and Wellington also up.

But Shanghai dipped 0.4 percent and Sydney shed 0.1 percent, while Taipei and Manila were also in the red. With AFP

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