PSEi up for 2nd day Tuesday; peso weakens

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose for the second consecutive day Tuesday mirroring upbeat sentiment in Wall Street, but the peso weakened. (Photo Pixabay)

MANILA —  The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) rose for the second consecutive day Tuesday mirroring upbeat sentiment in Wall Street, but the peso weakened.

PSEi gained 1.09 percent, or 92.40 points, to 8,592.38 points, which a trader said was driven by comments by Fed Governor Randal Quarles, who noted the sustained improvement of the US economy, which in turn is a reason for a possible hike in Fed rates.

With risk sentiment improving, most of the counters registered gains as shown by the 1.03 percent, or 52.35 points increase of the broader All Shares.

Five of the six sectors ended the day better, led by the Industrial, which rose 1.66 percent, and followed by the Holding Firms, 1.28 percent; Financials, 1.14 percent; Services, 0.82 percent; and Property, 0.52 percent.

Volume reached 3.55 billion shares amounting to PHP9.25 billion.

Meanwhile, the peso shed 0.17 centavos and ended the day at 52.03 from Monday’s 51.86 close.

A trader attributed this to corporates’ end-of-the-month dollar demand.

Although the local equities market is mostly upbeat during the day there were some foreign investors who divested shares and this, the trader said, added pressure to the local currency.

For the day, the peso opened at 51.95 from 51.80 a day.

It traded between its opening level and 52.07, resulting in an average of 52.03.

Volume for the day reached USD648.7 million, up from the previous day’s USD516 million.

The currency pair is seen to trade between 51.90 and 52.10 Wednesday.