By Leslie D. Venzon
MANILA, Aug. 25 (PNA) — Philippine stock prices rebounded on Tuesday as investors picked up bargains after previous day’s huge sell-off amid uncertainties in the global markets.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose 39.33 points to 6,830.34 from previous day’s 6,791.01 finish.
Monday’s 6.7-percent market plunge was the 11th biggest recorded drop for the index, and the biggest one-day percentage decline after June 13, 2013 when the PSEi plummeted 6.75 percent.
“Bargain hunting occurred today after a sharp drop yesterday. Market players saw some bargains on heavily battered stocks,” said Banco de Oro Unibank Inc. chief market strategist Jonathan Ravelas.
Counters were mixed, with the market’s gain led by holding firms increasing 1.89 percent.
The sub-indices of services and mining and oil were in the negative territory.
Around 3.02 billion shares worth Php8.38 billion changed hands.
Market breadth was negative with decliners outnumbered advancers, 85 to 62, while 49 issues were unchanged.
Meanwhile, PSE President and Chief Executive Officer Hans Sicat downplayed speculations that the trading halt Tuesday morning was related to previous day’s stock market slump.
“The exchange (PSE) does not intervene in how the market performs,” Sicat said, noting that the trading halt was not related to the core trading engine itself.
”What the issue is what you might call the middleware, this is essentially the software that sense information from the base trading engine to your front-end terminals. You have different terminals and in some cases, some terminals were receiving the information slower than the others,” he added. (PNA)