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LOCAL share prices closed slightly higher Friday despite worries
over surging inflation and higher interest rates, but volume was
thin, dealers said.
The composite index gained 21.28 points to
2,739.70. The all-shares index rose 0.83 percent to 1,711.17 points.
There were 55 advancers, 31 decliners and 57
unchanged.
Turnover fell to P2.297 billion compared with
P2.559 billion on Thursday.
“We went up initially because of the rise in
the US [market] but this being a Friday, and the start of a long
weekend, I think the rise has been tempered,” Rommel Macapagal of
Westlink Global Equities told AFP.
“The long weekend [deterred investors.] Also,
our [economic] indictors are still turning downwards,” he said.
The government on Thursday announced that
inflation for May rose to 9.6 percent, its highest level since 1999,
leading monetary authorities to raise key interest rates by 25 basis
points, its first rate hike since 2005.
Telecom giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone
Co. (PLDT) gained 0.39 percent to P2,520.
Top conglomerate Ayala Corp. gained 4.03 percent
to P322.50 however its real estate arm, Ayala Land Inc. was
unchanged at P10.25.
San Miguel Corp. saw its A shares, which are
reserved for Filipinos, rise 1.2 percent to P41.50. Its B shares,
which are available to foreigners, were unchanged at P42.
The local currency traded at 44.168 to the
dollar.
-- AFP
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