Philippines share prices closed 0.12 percent higher Wednesday as last-minute bargain-hunting pushed the market out of negative territory where it loitered for most of the session amid a lack of fresh leads, dealers said.
The composite index added 3.05 points to 2,546.53, after hitting a low of 2,523.33. The broader all-shares index rose 5.51 points to 1,571.47. Gainers led losers 52 to 38, with 56 unchanged. Turnover totalled 2.03 billion shares worth 2.37 billion pesos (4.83 million dollars).
The peso averaged 49.94 to the dollar. "This is a good time to buy on weakness as eventually the market will be moving up especially towards the latter part of the year," he added.
Dealers said investors generally remain bullish toward the equity market amid improvements in the country's economic fundamentals and the government's fiscal performance, strengthening its chances of getting a credit rating upgrade soon from international credit rating agencies. On Tuesday, the government announced that it slipped into a budget deficit again in September after posting surpluses in four of the last five months, as it spent more to ensure economic growth.
But the Department of Finance said the budget gap of 50.4 billion pesos the first nine months of the year was less than half of the government's target ceiling for the period. Top-traded Ayala Corp closed up 2.50 pesos at 482.50 while unit Ayala Land Inc added 25 centavos to 14 pesos. Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co was unchanged at 2,195 pesos. San Miguel Corp's A-shares were unchanged at 66 pesos, while its B-shares fell one peso to 73.00 pesos.
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