Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) Securities Inc. on Thursday said it is sticking to its year-end estimates for the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) to reach 7,200 to 7,300 points, despite the current volatilities that saw the main index falling by more than 2 percent in a day.
Raul Ruiz, RCBC Securities vice president and head of research, said there will still be companies and institutional investors that will stick to buying before the end of the year.
“Easily, the main index can make a rally by 100 or 200 points in a day due to the year-end window-dressing of companies. They are just waiting for the right time to enter,” Ruiz said.
The stock-brokerage firm of RCBC said that, for next year, the main index will reach 7,500 to 7,700 points and the robust trading for next year is enough to improve its current standing in the industry.
The company, which currently handles an average of a little over P3 billion of transactions monthly, said it is looking to improve its ranking at 25 from the 134 active brokers to barge into the top 20 list as it works to bring its transactions handled to an average of P4 billion a month.
On Thursday the PSEi recovered from its 2.7-percent drop from the previous day and gained 63.07 points to 7,029.28.
The drop was a result of the global economic jitters due to falling oil prices.
The PSEi dropped to as low as 6,882.18, but late buying propped up the market at the close.
Foreign investors, however, continue to dump Philippine shares ending the day at a net sell of P1.09 billion.
Traders said the market followed Wall Street performance, which showed its best session for the year. Total volume of trade at the PSE was at 2.11 billion shares worth P10.9 billion. Losers still trailed gainers 121 to 68 and 37 shares were unchanged.
Among the subindices, only the Mining and Oil index fell by 119.26 points to15,208.10, while all others increased.
The All Shares index rose 18.16 to 4,150.56, the Financials index gained 12.20 to 1,648.03 and the Industrial index climbed 59.34 to 11,629.68.
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. was the day’s most traded and it gained P32 to P2,802,;Ayala Land dropped P0.05 to P32.95; Universal Robina Corp. rose P4 to P190; BDO Unibank Inc. increased P1 to P107; and Alliance Global Group Inc. fell P0.05 to P21.95.