By Joann Villanueva/PNA
MANILA — Early window dressing buoyed the Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) Monday and this pre-holiday cheer also benefited the peso.
PSEi gained 0.79 percent, or 57.69 points, to 7,397.87 point, which Regina Capital Managing Director Luis Limlingan said was in contrast to the drop of US stocks Friday last week.
“No slowdown for Philippine markets once again as the Santa Claus rally kept going along with the start of the early window dressing for November,” he said.
The main index’ finish was trailed by most of the other counters, with the All Shares up by 0.72 percent, or 31.86 points, to 4,441.09 points.
Mining and Oil led the sectors with a 3.35 percent increase and was followed by the Holding Firms, 1.26 percent; Services, 1.19 percent; Property, 0.73 percent; and Financials, 0.36 percent.
Industrial was the sole counter that ended in the red after it declined by 0.08 percent.
Volume reached 1.7 billion shares amounting to PHP6.88 billion.
Gainers led losers at 106 to 74 while 50 shares were unchanged.
Relatively, the peso ended the day at 52.35 from 52.45 Friday last week, which a trader pointed to the PSEi performance during the day.
The local currency opened at 52.42, sideways from the 52.35 start in previous session.
It traded between 52.465 and its closing level, resulting to the average of 52.394.
Volume of trade reached USD755.4 million, higher than the USD655.24 million at the end of last week.
The currency pair is seen to trade between 52.30 and 53.50 Tuesday.