The stock market rallied Tuesday as investors track government moves to ease lockdown measures around the world.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index jumped 124.53 points, or 2.3 percent, to 5,574.98 on a value turnover of P4.6 billion. Gainers beat losers, 109 to 78, with 35 issues unchanged.
International Container Terminal Services Inc., the biggest port operator and owned by tycoon Enrique Razon Jr., surged 7.3 percent to P88, while sister unit Bloomberry Resorts Corp., which operates a casino on a reclaimed portion of Manila Bay, advanced 5.4 percent to P5.64.
SM Investments Corp. of the Sy Group rose 5 percent to P819, while Jollibee Foods Corp., the largest fast-food chain, also climbed 5 percent to P141.20.
Asian stocks, meanwhile, mostly rose Tuesday, but US oil prices suffered another collapse.
While data is beginning to highlight the impact coronavirus has had on economies, markets have been buoyed in recent days by news that some of the worst-hit countries are finally seeing infection and death rates slow to levels not seen for a month.
However, profit-taking and concern that some containment measures could be lifted too soon—leading to a possible second wave of infections—are tempering any surge across markets.
Those concerns were highlighted by data out of Germany Tuesday showing a slight pick-up in transmission just as the country was beginning to open up.
Focus this week is on policy decisions by the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, after the Bank of Japan said it would lift the limit on its bond-buying programme to provide liquidity to financial markets.
Equities in Asia started weakly but picked up through the day.
Hong Kong added one percent, Seoul gained 0.6 percent and Taipei put on 0.5 percent, while Jakarta and Bangkok rose 0.3 percent and Mumbai was marginally higher.
Wellington surged more than three percent as investors returned from a long weekend when the New Zealand government declared victory in its battle against the virus and considered lifting restrictions.
But Tokyo, Sydney and Shanghai ended slightly lower with Singapore.
Stephen Innes at AxiCorp said the general mood for now was positive.
“Investors continue to play off the bullish-for-growth narrative as several economies around the world set to re-open to the timely central bank week, where guidance will pledge to expand existing asset-purchase schemes if conditions deteriorate,” he wrote in a note.
But CMC Markets’ Michael Hewson warned that while massive central bank and government support had been providing a boost to stocks, “the economic data has gone from bad to worse and unlikely to get better in the short term, which means that investors appear to be banking on a quick return to normal as governments slowly relax restrictions.”
Despite tentative re-openings in some countries, crude continues to be mauled by concerns over collapsed demand and storage facilities filling up.
WTI plunged more than 14 percent below $11 a barrel Tuesday, a day after it lost a quarter of its value, after a major exchange-traded fund started selling its short-term contracts of the commodity. With AFP