PHL shares close higher on Wall St. gains

Philippine shares closed higher in upbeat trading, boosted by the advances overnight on Wall Street and gains registered by regional markets Friday. The 30-company Philippine Stock Exchange index soared 118.74 points or 3.05 percent to end the session at 4,009.26, and the All Shares index surged 64.49 points or 2.31 percent to 2,856.18. Gainers dominated losers 103 to 28, while 44 stocks closed unchanged. All six sub-indices advanced with the Holding Firms registering a 4.25-percent gain. Volume reached more than 7.59 billion shares valued at P5.29 billion. The market performance was buoyed by the gains posted by US stocks overnight. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.68 percent, while Nasdaq advanced 1.88 percent. Except for the main index in Shanghai, all other main indices in Asia were trading higher. "We are not yet out of the woods, but we have strong confidence in the domestic economy, and ergo, domestic firms, particularly those whose products and services are principally distributed locally," said a trader with Accord Capital Equities. “The approaching earnings season, the seemingly positive turn Europe is taking and the recent state of neutral but positively biased numbers from the US may provide investors with a decent short- to medium-term return on their equity portfolios," the Accord Capital trader added. — CMA/VS, GMA News