By Leslie Venzon
MANILA, (PNA) — The Philippine stock market rose for a fifth day and defied a global slump on Monday, as the euphoria over the country’s new credit ratings upgrade gained from Moody’s Investors Service overruled United States (US) budget concerns.
The barometer Philippine stock exchange index (PSEi) edged up 52.73 points or 0.83 percent to 6,443.21 from Friday’s 6,390.48.
”If not for the upgrade on Thursday, we would have followed the lead of the region. We were lucky to have that upgrade,” noted Katrina Tecson, analyst at brokerage firm RCBC Securities Inc.
Tecson attributed the market’s rally to “follow-through buying” as investors remained optimistic about the prospects of the market.
”The market continues to play the 6,000-6,500 range and will continue to do so. The recent rally was due to recent Moody’s upgrade,” said Jonathan Ravelas, Banco de Oro Unibank chief market strategist.
On Thursday, the Philippines received a credit ratings upgrade from Moody’s, its third after Fitch Ratings, Inc. and Standard & Poor’s (S&P) raised their respective grades for the country earlier in the year.
This amid the global markets slump, as the US budget impasse continued to affect investors’ sentiment.
The market’s rally was led mainly by holding firms and property stocks that rose 1.86 percent and 1.23 percent.
The services sector declined slightly.
Volume of transactions reached 1.39 billion shares valued at P6.18 billion.
Advancers won decliners, 90 to 51, while 44 issues were unchanged.