The Philippine Online Chronicles

Local equities ignored Wall Street’s overnight decline and climbed to a new multi-year high, breaking the 3,500 resistance level. The Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) rose 19.41 points or 0.56 percent in today’s trading.

Advances and declines were both equal at 61 while 45 stocks remained unchanged. Around 902 million shares worth P3.2 billion exchanged hands. Sub-indexes were mixed. The services and mining and oil sector had marginal losses while the property sector, benefiting from the prolonged low interest, gained 1.76 percent. Holding firms followed close by rising 1.2 percent.

Index gainers were led by property giants Megaworld Corp., Filinvest Land Inc. and Ayala Land Inc. Consumer stocks Jollibee Food Corp. and Alliance Global Inc. were also among the top index gainers.

For the index losers, Energy Development Corp. and Aboitiz Power fell 2.44 and 2.51 percent respectively. Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Globe Telecom and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company were also the worst index performers.

Asian markets mix

Asian markets were mixed in Wednesday’s trading. The Yen rose to an eight-month high, hurting Japan’s exporters and dragging the Nikkei 225 down by 2.11 percent. When repatriated, a strong yen eats into the bottomline of exporters. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose to a three-month high, gaining another 0.43 percent.

China’s Shanghai Composite Index added 0.44 percent. China’s State Information Center is forecasting China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to slow down to 9.2 percent on the third quarter as pump-priming comes to an end.

The economy expanded by 11.9 percent in the first quarter but slowed down to 10.3 percent in the second quarter.