Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Shares rise 0.1% on Ayala Land gains (2:05 p.m.)
The benchmark 30-company Philippine Stock Exchange Index advanced 3.38 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,463.57, adding to Tuesday's 0.9 percent gain.
Analysts said the market also reacted positively to the latest budget figures released during trading, helping propel the main index to its intraday high before profit taking took away some of its gains.
Ayala Land was the most actively traded stock, rising 3.5 percent to P14.75, after its chief financial officer and senior vice president, Jaime Ysmael, said he expected the property concern to sustain strong first-quarter earnings performance for the rest of the year.
Pilipino Telephone rose 5.3 percent to P4 after the mobile phone company's president Napoleon Nazareno forecast a stable core net profit of P1.9 billion a quarter for the rest of the year, the same level it posted in the first quarter.
Capping the market upside was profit taking in Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., which fell 0.5 percent to P2,100, and Bank of the Philippine Islands, which dropped 0.8 percent at P66.
National Treasurer Omar Cruz announced Wednesday that the government posted a budget surplus of P17.6 billion in April, more than five times the year-earlier figure of P3.3 billion. He credited lower spending and higher revenue for the surplus. (AP)
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