“With our second quarter Real Gross Domestic Product growth coming in below expectations, cracks in the confidence towards the economy could already be present which in turn would make the building of market momentum even harder,” said Philstocks Financial Research Manager Japhet Tantiangco.
He also pointed out that, “this week, investors are also expected to look forward to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ policy meeting to see how their reaction and policy outlook would be following the slowdown in our GDP growth in the second quarter. Hints of dovish policies from the BSP may give sentiment a boost.”
2Tradeasia.com also pointed out that, “the Chinese ghost festival will start on the 16th, which could further thin out trading volume for the next few weeks. Expect the market to hyper-fixate on the BSP's meeting next week as funds look for stronger direction amid the divergence between economic deceleration versus neutral-to-positive corporate earnings and valuations.”
It also has a BUY rating on SM Investments given their robust earnings growth despite global headwinds as there is strong momentum in consumer spending which will benefit SM Retail and the malls of SM Prime.