PSEi seen to end on positive note after year of ups and downs

Foreign investors have so far liquidated P56.668 billion from the Philippine equities market this year as they chose to move their assets to other markets, latest data available from the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) revealed Wednesday.

For this year, the market has seen monthly net foreign selling in eight months: January, February, April, and the months from August to December.

Analysts attribute this movement to several major factors throughout the year — the national elections in May, the Brexit referendum in June, and the US interest rate hike in December.

With the market absorbing a "clear winner" on May 10, the day of the national elections, the PSEi closed at 7,174.88, and at 7,796.25 as then-Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte assumed the presidency on June 30.

Some of his "colorful" remarks, however, were seen as the reason for the drop of the bellwether index on September 7, slipping by 1.30 percent to 7,619.10.

When Britain voted to leave the European Union, the PSEi reacted by gaining 1.13 points to close at 7,715.90 on June 27.

On the other hand, the index fell to 6,855.31 on December 15, after the US Federal Reserve chose to raise its interest rates for only the second time in a decade.

The PSE index opened the year at 6,833.42 on January 4, and has since seen a low of 6,084.28 on January 21 as investors rushed to get out of the market in the face of the negative outlook on the global economy.

Later in the year, however, it saw a high of 8,102.30 on July 21 buoyed by positive corporate earnings.

Looking forward, Ram D. Badiola, equity trader at Meridian Securities Inc., said the PSEi is still expected to register a positive year this 2016.

"I think we will move up tomorrow. We will end up at least 7,000. All the fundamentals of the PSEi companies are stable," he said in a text message.

To achieve this, the PSEi needs to advance by at least 105.65 points or 1.51 percent on Thursday—the last trading day of the year—to close above 6,952.09, the level at which the benchmark index closed on December 29, 2015. — BM, GMA News