Philippines shares to depend on US stocks

The movement of Philippines shares will depend on the performance of the US stock market and oil prices, dealers said on Friday. "It depends on Wall Street and oil prices," said Spencer Yap of the BPI Securities Corp. He said the Philippine market recovered Friday after the US market rose and after a pullback in record-high oil prices.
For the week to May 23, the composite index fell 1.06 percent or by 30.67 points to 2,849.28. Average daily turnover fell to 1.227 billion shares worth 2.116 billion shares (48.76 million dollars) from 1.455 billion shares valued at 4.574 billion pesos in the previous week. "There's a lot more uncertainty and everybody's holding their breath and worrying how much of a drag there will be from higher inflation," said David Cohen of Action Economics in Singapore.