MANILA – A slew of positive economic news both here and overseas boosted the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) on Thursday, which backed the peso.
The main equities index rose by 1.38 percent, or 80.64 points, to 5,944.87 points.
All Shares increased by 0.95 percent, or 33.43 points, to 3,562.28 points.
Most of the sectoral counters also tracked the main index, led by Financials, which rose by 1.87 percent.
Trailing behind were Services, which increased 1.49 percent; Holding Firms, 1.34 percent; Property, 1.18 percent; and Industrial, 0.06 percent.
Only Mining and Oil ended the day in the negative territory with a decline of 0.95 percent.
Volume totaled 1.96 billion shares, amounting to PHP5.43 billion.
Decliners led advancers at 108 to 81, while 53 shares were unchanged.
Luis Limlingan, Regina Capital Development Corp.’s head of sales, attributed the risk-on sentiment in the local bourse partly to the higher-than-projected rise of private-sector employment growth in the US last month to 749,000 jobs from expectations of about 650,000 jobs.
The August 2020 print was revised to 481,000 from 216,000.
In the local front, the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 50.1 in September from 47.3 the previous month.
A reading of above 50 shows improvement while figures below 50 indicate deterioration.
Limlingan said the country’s latest PMI data is lower than last year’s 51.8 “but marks the first period of expansion in six months – the highest reading since February 2020.”
“All things considered, this means that the country’s manufacturing activity only started to pick up in September following the mid-March lockdowns,” he added.
Meanwhile, the local currency ended the day sideways against the US dollar after finishing the trade at 48.43 from 48.495 on Wednesday.
It opened the day also sideways at 48.46 from the previous session’s 48.41, trading between 48.51 and 48.41 for an average of 48.458.
Volume totaled USD807.6 million, higher than the USD726.57 million the previous day. (PNA)
