Once again, the PSE index rises sluggishly with a flat 0.35% increase, proof of the continued caution exercised by the market. With the sole exception of the Industrial index, which lost 0.55% of its previous value, all sectoral indices ended positively but with miniscule growth. The continually volatile mining and oil sector index received the highest index movement at 1.6% advance upward. Market advancers still beat decliners 84 to 64, with 34 unaffected issues settling the score. There were 20,226 trades today in the stock market, amounting to a volume of around 5,548,000,000. Life of course goes on in the Philippines, but whether or not the tides of Europe will still haunt Philippine shores will be dependent on the ability of investors to trust the market again.

PSE chart performance


Boulevard Holdings, Inc. (BHI) said talks collapsed with Resom Resorts of Korea for a hotel and resort long-term lease in Puerto Azul. Details on Resom’s decision to pull-out from the talks were not given but it was reported that the Korean investor will proceed with its resort project in Subic Bay instead. Resom has already put down an initial investment of US$7.5m for the Resom World City in Subic. The difference of lease amounts (PhP4.7m per month for Puerto Azul as against PhP2.0m per month in Subic) could have been a major factor for Resom’s decision.Meanwhile,trading in BHI might be suspended for up to three months starting October 14th after it failed to submit the required financial statements to the PSE. Avoid.



SPC Power Corp. (SPC) confirmed reports that its consortium has won the operations and maintenance contract for the 650-MW Malaya thermal power plant in Rizal province. SPC was the lone bidder submitting a bid of PhP715m for the contract. Longterm Buy.



San Miguel Brewery Inc. (SMB), the beer-production arm of the San Miguel Corporation, is going to raise up to P 20 billion through the sale of peso-denominated bonds to refinance its obligations due to come in 2012. Interestingly, the increased dependence on the sale of bonds shows the decreasing interest in equities. Nevertheless, the repayment of any obligation signals increased confidence and therefore a return to equity activity. However, given the situation where one obligation is paid out by another obligation, the new bonds’ effects on the equity side of the company will depend on any stipulation that might lighten or increase the burden of debt further. It is therefore imminent to just sell at day-trade strength, given that the stock had already stagnated too much around the 30-peso mark in terms of yearly performance, as seen in the above chart.



Sources:
http://business.inquirer.net/24451/philippines-cuts-growth-export-forecasts
http://business.inquirer.net/24113/eurozone-hopes-wall-street-rally-lift-asia-markets
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/companies/17807-smc-brewery-unit-plans-p20-b-bond-offer
htp://www.pse.com.ph