Roundup: Philippine bourse rallies on positive U.S. job data

The Philippine stock market extended its rally on Monday following the positive U.S. job data.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index rose by 0.70 percent, or 54.39 points, to 7,782.57, while the broader all-share index gained 0.32 percent or 14.49 points to 4,511.23.

Trading volume reached 3.28 billion shares worth 9.57 billion pesos (215.61 million U.S. dollars) with 123 stocks declining, 60 advancing, and 41 were unchanged.

Two of the six counters went down, including the services and the mining and oil sectors.

"The PSEi picked up where it left off last week, a mere 0.21- point advance at the open but built up on this enroute to yet another record setting session. Peers in the narrower Southeast Asian region were in the same boat," analyst Justino Calaycay of Accord Capital Equities Corp. said in his daily stock market comment.

U.S. companies hired an additional 257,000 new workers in January, more than the 150,000 gains posted in the previous two months. Unemployment however marginally rose to 5.7 percent from 5. 6 percent.

"With more people employed at higher wages, consumer spending should continue to pick up and lend support to the recovery," Calaycay said.

The U.S. economy is expected to grow 3 percent this year.

"There is little argument that the current level of the market is at a high point. But what is more important than where the market was and is, is where the market will be," Calaycay said.

The over-all backdrop -- at least on the domestic front -- remains rosy.

Stocks in the 30-company index closed mixed, including Megaworld Corp., Manila Electric Co., and BDO Unibank, Inc. Endi