Philippines share prices rose 1.41 percent on Wednesday to chalk up another record finish with investors positive on the economic outlook, dealers said. The upswing in major Asian markets and in New York overnight buoyed investor sentiment, overshadowing concerns Manila may struggle to keep its budget gap within target this year because of weak revenues, they added.
The composite index added 51.74 points at 3,718.88 after also setting a new intraday high of 3,721.26. The all-share index jumped 35.30 points to 2,366.64.
There were 95 advancers and 39 decliners, while 38 stocks were unchanged.
A total of 6.64 billion shares worth 6.38 billion pesos (139.27 million dollars) changed hands.
Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT), the nation's largest telecoms firm and the biggest in terms of market capitalisation, jumped 45 pesos to 2,685, tracking gains in its American Depository Receipts overnight.
"PLDT is sort of a proxy for the Philippine economy. Foreign institutional investors are maintaining their buy call on the Philippines given the country's solid fundamentals," said Jose Vistan of AB Capital Securities.
"Technically the market is overbought. But fundamentally, and given the strong inflows, we expect the market to hit new highs in the coming sessions, and this certainly is the perfect time for IPOs," he added.
Two Philippine companies are scheduled to launch their IPOs this month - Aboitiz Power and Phoenix Petroleum - which together may raise around 12.5 billion pesos. Lim Su Sian, an economist at Singapore-based DBS Bank, expects the Philippine economy to continue expanding, by 5.5 percent this year and in 2008, from 5.4 percent in 2006.
"While it is too premature to conclude that will be able to balance the budget by 2008 as promised, steady revenue growth should nevertheless be sufficient to keep the positive fiscal story in place, even if no upgrades in ratings/outlook have come through yet so far this year," Lim added.
Ayala Land rose 50 centavos to 19 pesos. SM Prime Holdings aadded 75 centavos to 15 pesos San Miguel A rose one peso to 68.50, while its B shares were unchanged at 75 pesos.