Roundup: Philippine bourse closes higher

Investors remain uncertain of the local equities on Wednesday, trimming down the gains it made during the intra-day rally.

The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange index rose by 0.45 percent or 32.05 points to 7,092.90, while the broader all-share index added 0.50 percent or 20.18 points to 4,083.95.

Trading volume reached 1.34 billion shares worth 5.30 billion Philippine pesos (114.76 million U.S. dollars) with 120 stocks advancing, 62 declining, and 38 were unchanged.

All six counters were up.

"The benchmark share index floated listless in positive territory even as it kept to a thin trading band characteristic of the week's opening session and of markets overseas," analyst Justino Calaycay of Accord Capital Equities Corp. said in his daily stock market comment.

U.S. earnings turned out mixed and lingering concerns over China stayed any surge in optimism, albeit keeping the bears equally at bay.

As a result, the bargain hunters, who were initially aggressive when session opened and even pulling up the index to the 7,100 level were eventually met by profit takers.

"Should it be able to sustain levels above 6,890 in the next two weeks, October could offer at least one positive moving into the final 17 weeks of the trading calendar for 2015. Furthermore, this will snap a succession of month-on-month losses since April," Calaycay said.

For now, investors are keeping to the sidelines and waiting for stronger, clearer justifications to aggressively add to or shovel back funds into their equity portfolio, he said.

Stock in the 30-company index were mostly up. These include BDO Unibank, Inc., Ayala Land, Inc., and Robinsons Land Corp. Endit