MANILA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine stock market managed to steal some gains on Tuesday despite the slide in the U.S. equities for the eighth consecutive days.
The bellwether Philippine Stock Exchange gained 1.18 percent or 85.49 points to 7,331.46, while the broader all-share index rose by 0.94 percent or 41.21 points to 4,411.21.
Trading volume reached 1.59 billion shares worth 6.62 billion Philippine pesos (125 million U.S. dollars) with 100 stocks advancing, 80 declining, and 48 were unchanged.
Of the six counters, only the mining and oil sector bucked the trend.
"The market is yet to define with conviction whether the 7300-line is a support or resistance level," analyst Justino Calaycay said in his daily stock market comment, noting that for the past sessions, it has been the market's resistance level.
Tuesday's trade was marked with bargain hunting on select issues with most foreigner investors opting to get out of the market.
"Clearly too, their preference for selling has seen an acceleration this week, pulling their year-to-date position to its lowest so far this year and in the last two years when the board is extended to the start of January 2016," he said.
Calaycay said while the local equities are generally still in a bull market in the absence of confirmatory action the trend has reversed, this is being severely challenged on both technical and fundamental fronts.
Stocks in 30-company index were mostly up. These include SM Investments Corp., Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., and the Bank of Philippine Islands.
