Thursday, September 02, 2004

September 2 Philippine Stock Market Daily Review: Manny Pangilinan Stocks Drives Phisix Higher

September 2 Philippine Stock Market Daily Review:

Manny Pangilinan Stocks Drives Phisix Higher

MVP’s flair for keeping the domestic market enthralled with a gamut of corporate ‘maneuverings’ tales is simply amazing. Investor’s interest in PLDT, Metro Pacific and Pilipino Telephone commanded the market’s attention and comprised about 53% or simply a majority of the day’s output. Moreover, heavyweight PLDT’s superb gains (+2.72%) complemented by Phisix component Metro Pacific’s (+25.71%) superlative price jump drove the Philippine benchmark back to its April highs to breach the psychological resistance of 1,600 and is 6 points away from breaking the 3 year highs of 1,620 established last April, although technically speaking in terms of closing prices the PHISIX which closed higher by 1.33% or 21.26 points is at a record three year high (April’s highest close was at 1,610)!

Asia’s largest gainer for the day was actually a product of collective buying binges by both local and foreign investors. Although foreign capital were the minority (29.54%) of today’s activities, capital inflow from investor’s abroad amounted to P 155.748 million (US$ 2.776 million) representing 24.2% of today’s output! Talk about crisis fears! The gist of the buying was centered on PLDT with foreign moolah taking up 69.25% of the company’s trading activities. However, despite the inflow, foreign investors sold the broader market while constraining acquisitions to selected companies as Ayala Corp (+1.81%), Petron Corp (+5.66%), First Philippine Holdings (+6.12%), Megaworld (+3.63%) and URC (+3.65%). Foreign money took advantage of the bullish sentiment to dispatch Meralco B shares (+2.29%), which have been going on for the eighth successive session.

While PLDT led the Phisix higher, it was backed by other heavyweights as Ayala Corp, Globe Telecoms (+1.70%), Metrobank (+1.01%) and San Miguel A (+.85%) while the rest, Bank of the Philippine Islands, San Miguel B, Ayala Land and SM Primeholdings, were neutral. Of course, the broader index components, such as Metro Pacific, First Philippine Holdings, Meralco, Petron and others were there to compliment.

Sentiment was moderately bullish as advancers beat decliners by 2 to 1, while industry indices showed a mixed performance with 3 gainers (Commercial-Industrial, Mining, Finance) against 3 decliners (oil, property and the ALL shares index).

Among the top 10 major gainers we see two cement issues Republic Cement (ranked first +47.36%) and Southeast Asia Cement (ninth, +12.5%), two telecom lightweights PT&T (eighth, +14.89%) and Liberty Telecoms (fifth, 26.6%) and a hodgepodge of other issues as Imperial Resources (2nd +41.17%), Pacifica (third,+41.17%), Fil-estate Corp (fourth, +40%), Metro Pacific (fifth), East Asia Power (7th,+17.24%) and Omico Mining (tenth+10.52%)

A notable feature of today’s trade is that number of issues traded reached 125 and is the largest in about two years (my record) meaning that local investors have broadened their activities and is a bullish indicator. Despite the Phisix’s breakout, its moderate volume shows of the lack of penetration level from local investors.

Evidently today’s breakout comes in the face of the approaching seasonal last quarter’s strength in the stockmarket, coupled with its cyclical uptrend and the ‘new administration honeymoon’ cycles that are manifestly unfolding. Moreover it does seem even with the spate of ‘crisis’ chatters, market internals continue to point towards a growing bullish psychological framework among the local investors buttressed by selected foreign picks as PLDT.

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