Philippine stock market recovers Thursday after days of sluggish performance

The Philippine stock market recovered on Thursday but investors remain apprehensive on entering the local equities.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index gained 0.25 percent or 17.84 points to 7,252.66, while the broader all-share index rose by 0.33 percent or 14.53 points to 4,394.08.

Trading volume reached 5.75 billion shares worth 6.68 billion Philippine pesos (135 million U.S. dollars) with 97 stocks advancing, 95 declining, and 42 were unchanged.

Of the six counters, two bucked the trend. These were the industrial and the holding firm sectors.

"There is just too much risk in searching for day trades," analyst Justino Calaycay of A&A Securities, Inc.

The analyst said the upcoming release of corporate results might give investors some reason to put their bets on stocks that prove to be promising.

But with the index hardly leaving the 7,180 and 7,300 trading band, Calaycay said it might be wise for investors to start accumulating blue chips and fundamentally sound second-liners.

"Since we are anticipating the fourth quarter numbers, we are training our scopes at the sectors we judge to present the possible returns," he said.

Stocks in the 30-company index were mostly up. These include index heavyweight PLDT, Inc., the Bank of Philippine Islands, and Ayala Corp.

source: Xinhua