The stock market climbed Tuesday, joining a global advance at the start of 2018 with the Philippine Stock Exchange Index a whisker away from touching the 9,000-point mark.
The PSEi rose 48.40 points, or 0.5 percent, to an all-time high of P8,999.02 on a value turnover of P8.5 billion. Gainers beat losers, 125 to 84, with 47 issues unchanged.
Major property developer Ayala Land Inc. added 0.9 percent to P45.60, while SM Investments Corp. of retail tycoon Henry Sy increased 2.3 percent to P1,095.
Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. advanced 3 percent to P140.90, but LT Group Inc. of tobacco and airline tycoon Lucio Tan dropped 4.1 percent to P23.50.
Tokyo and Hong Kong, meanwhile, were among the Asian markets chalking up gains of more than one percent Tuesday, with traders optimistic heading into the earnings season.
While there were limited concerns about its likely economic impact, a deal in Washington that ended a US government shutdown also removed uncertainty and provided further support.
Democrats on Monday agreed to a Republican deal that brought an end to the three-day federal shutdown”•the first since 2013. The agreement, which keeps the government running until February 8, gave an extra nudge to Wall Street’s three main indexes, which all set new records by the end of trade.
But Stephen Innes, head of Asia-Pacific trading at OANDA, said the deal was “a matter of kicking the can down the road.” He added that given the partisanship in Congress, “we should expect another contentious affair if both parties don’t resolve the critical stumbling blocks between now and then.”
Still, equity markets remain upbeat, having surged in recent weeks on the back of a strong global economy, hopes for strong corporate profits and expectations of a positive hit from Donald Trump’s tax cuts.
Sentiment was bolstered by a report from the International Monetary Fund raising its world growth outlook and predicting at least a short-term boost from the president’s fiscal policy.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong continued to hit new records, surging 1.3 percent in the afternoon while Tokyo finished 1.3 percent up at a new 26-year high. Shanghai soared 1.3 percent and Seoul jumped 1.4 percent.
Sydney added 0.8 percent and Singapore was up 0.5 percent, while there were also healthy gains in Taipei, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
The yen edged down against the dollar after the Bank of Japan offered no new guidance on its plans for monetary policy after earlier this month easing back on its bond-buying stimulus.
While no moves were expected from the central bank there had been hopes the board would provide some forward guidance as it edges away from its easy-money crisis-era policies to move in line with the Federal Reserve. With AFP
“The decision makes it clear that the BoJ doesn’t want any noise about early tightening now,” Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief Japan economist at Credit Suisse Group AG and a former BoJ official, told Bloomberg News. With AFP