By Joann Villanueva/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended Monday with gains, reportedly inspired by reports of the improvement of non-farm payrolls in the US last March, while the peso finished the day sideways against the greenback.
PSEi improved for the second day in a row and gained 0.54 percent, or 42.45 points, to 7,915.63 points.
It was tracked by the All Shares, which rose 0.41 percent, or 19.97 points, to 4,866.96 points.
Most of the sectoral counters followed, with Services registering the highest increase at 1.41 percent. Industrial, Holding Firms, and Property went up by 0.64 percent, 0.52 percent, and 0.44 percent, respectively.
On the other hand, Mining and Oil fell 0.24 percent and Financials by 0.14 percent.
Volume reached 679.44 million shares amounting to PHP5.4 billion.
Gainers led losers at 107 to 91 while 50 shares were unchanged.
Meanwhile, the local currency ended the day at 52.14 from 52.1 at the end of last week, which a trader pointed to better NFP report in the third month this year.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that NFP went up by 196,000 last March, a big jump from the revised 33,000 increase, up from the initial report of 20,000, in the previous month, while unemployment is steady at 3.8 percent.
The trader said this report boosted sentiments on the US currency but the peso was able to stay afloat.
For the day, the peso opened at 52.2, a tad better than its 52.28 start in the previous session.
It traded between 52.245 and 52.11 resulting to an average of 52.182.
Volume reached USD873.93 million, lower than the USD964.52 million at the end of last week.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 52.10 and 52.30 Tuesday.
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