Wednesday, August 11, 2004

August 11 Philippine Stock Market Review

August 11 Philippine Stock Market Review

That 1,600-level is proving to be a stubborn resistance level.

Obviously the Philippine as well as most Asia’s markets have been lifted by the sturdy gains in Wall Street, as US Fed Chair Alan Greenspan raised its short term interbank rates by an anticipated quarter percentage points and forecasted that the “economy nevertheless appears poised to resume a stronger pace of expansion going forward. Inflation has been somewhat elevated this year, though a portion of the rise in prices seems to reflect transitory factors.” The term ‘Transitory’ has been the vogue word of late and poses as a big QUESTION mark as crude OIL has been repeatedly establishing new heights. While the preeminent market mover was projecting an optimistic outlook, sweet crude oil broke past the $45 level the highest ever in New York, in current dollar terms. Oil tycoon T. Boone Picken’s forecast of oil prices hitting $50 per barrel before going down to around $30 but never to go below that level seems to be moving right on the mark.

Well as we mentioned before, it would take foreign money to power the major composite index while the locals drive the broader market. The Phisix is one of the Region’s best performer up by 13.14 points or .83% following Indonesia and Japan. Foreign money was again selectively upbeat scooping up shares of mostly key telecom issues and was a thin majority or 50.08% of today’s trade. Today’s net foreign capital inflow amounted to P 117.158 million or about 14.28% of today’s output.

Sentiment was mostly positive, as advancing issue beat declining issues 43 to 31 while industry sub-indices were all up except for the extractive industries which were hamstrung by profit-taking.

Except for the foreign supported PLDT (-.78%) today’s sole heavyweight in the red, Globe Telecoms (+1.65%), Ayala Land (+1.81%), San Miguel B (+3.61%) and Bank of the Philippine Islands were all up on foreign buying, while the rest, SM Prime, Metrobank and San Miguel A were unchanged.

Questions of whether Sir Greenspan of the US FOMC would continue to raise rates in the face of the recent weak economic data and falling Treasury yields, which have portrayed the US economy as decelerating from its robust past quarters of higher than average growth, has been gaining some ground. Yesterday’s rate hike still falls short of the prevailing inflation levels and a desistance with the normalization of the yield curve plus the declines in the value of the US dollar are fodders for continuing ‘carry trades’ and is seen as beneficial to emerging markets as ours.

We may see a telecom led breakout of the 1,600 levels tomorrow.

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