Roundup: Philippine bourse closes higher ahead of inflation report

The Philippine stock market touched a new intraday high on Wednesday but profit takers trimmed down the gains.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index jumped by 0.92 percent or 71.32 points to 7,847.83 after touching an intraday high of 7,853.54. Similarly, the broader all-share index added 0. 71 percent or 32.24 points to 4,557.31.

Trading volume reached 1.54 billion shares worth 9.19 billion Philippine pesos (208.36 million U.S. dollars) with 111 stocks advancing, 69 declining, and 42 remaining unchanged.

Of the six counters, only the mining and oil sector bucked the trend.

"Share prices got off to a rather jittery start to the mid-week session as the U.S. and Europe tumbled overnight and ahead of the inflation report on Thursday," analyst Justino Calaycay of Accord Capital Equities Corp. said in his daily stock market comment.

As the session progressed however, investors were able to muster enough confidence to push the measure past the latest all- time closing high, moving practically flat thenceforth.

Philippine inflation will come out and Calaycay said they expect the figure to have slightly picked up between 2.5 percent to 2.7 percent in February in light of a series of oil price increases.

Nevertheless, these numbers are still within the government's official target band and raises no immediate concerns, nor motive for the local central bank to resume its tightening bias.

"The market can retain its poise above 7,700, provided the latest improved turnover is maintained on positive breadth," online brokerage 2TradeAsia.com said in its daily stock market comment.

Stocks in the 30-company index were mostly up. These include Ayala Land, Inc., SM Investments Corp., and BDO Unibank, Inc. Endi