Share prices at the Philippine Stock Exchange are expected to move sideways this week as the tug of war between the bulls and bears continues to keep the market in check.
Luis Limlingan, managing director for Regina Capital Development Corp., said some optimism came out from the market last week with S&P’s positive outlook on the Philippines and the government’s approval of P1 trillion worth of infrastructure projects.
Limlingan, however, said it was still premature to call it a reversal as investors would still monitor the release of the April inflation rate figures as well as the first-quarter earning of listed companies.
BDO Unibank Inc. chief investment strategist Jonathan Ravelas said the market remained concern about the weak peso and the rising inflation rate, which were squeezing consumer spending.
“Chartwise, the week’s close at 7,721.02 highlights near-term support emerged at the 7,500/7,550 levels. Expect some pullback towards the 8,000 levels. However, the market is still vulnerable towards the 7,000/7,200 levels,” Ravelas said.
The PSEi last week closed nearly flat at 7,721.02 amid volatile trading, while the broader All Shares Index added 0.33 percent to close at 4,671.83.
Only the holding firms and property issues among the sectoral indices posted week-on-week gains of 1.56 percent and 0.60 percent, respectively, while the financials, industrial, services and mining and oil ended in the negative.
Foreign investors remained net sellers for the week by P2.08 billion, while the average daily value traded stood at P5.98 billion from the previous week’s P7.51 billion.
Weekly top price gainers were Cemex Holdings Philippines Inc., which rose 4.8 percent to P3.46; Ayala Corp., which advanced 4.5 percent to P960; and Eagle Cement Corp., which gained 3.9 percent to P15.58.
Weekly top price losers were Ginebra San Miguel Inc., which declined 19 percent to P20.65; Nickel Asia Corp., which dropped 16.6 percent to P5.15; and DMCI Holdings Inc., increased 4.9 percent to P11.50.
Wall Street stocks, meanwhile, finished a volatile session little changed Friday following mixed corporate earnings and a better-than-expected report on first-quarter US economic growth.
Earnings remained at the forefront of the investor agenda as Amazon rocketed higher following strong results while disappointing figures from ExxonMobil weighed on the Dow.
US growth came in at 2.3 percent in the January-March period, according to government data, down from 2.9 percent in the final quarter of 2017 but better than analyst expectations.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.1 percent to end the week at 24,311.19.
The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.1 percent to finish at 2,669.91, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index increased a hair to 7,119.80.
US stocks have had a choppy week, alternating between worries about higher interest rates and ambivalence over corporate earnings that have been mostly good but sometimes not quite as strong as hoped for.